I should qualify my remarks by saying that the person sitting nearest me (that's "nearest" as opposed to "next to" or "beside") cried profusely at the film's denouement. This tale of a recently unemployed circus worker who gets involved with some poteen smugglers (poteen, in the unlikely event of this movie getting an international release, is an illegal liquor) left me wanting to cry only for the hour and a half of my life I had wasted. It's clear form the start of the film that Sweety, played competently by Brendan Gleeson, is a Gentle giant, and anyone who's seen _Slingblade_ or any other gentle giant movies know what eventually happens to them, especially when it's so clear who the bad guys are. If I had to think of something good to say about this film, it's that it deals with Irish crime without referring to the IRA, but this could also be said of _I Went Down_ also starring Gleeson, as well as including some wit and irony. With its emphasis on the sordid and moribund, it aspires to the profundity of Italian neo-realism but ends up looking more like a tacky British TV movie. How this film can headline at Irish multiplexes when witty, intelligent films like _Separation Anxiety_ and _Pete's Meteor_ await a release is a secret film distributors will probably keep under their cloven hooves.
Review of Sweety Barrett
