Directed by Nick Rowland
Starring Cosmo Jarvis, Barry Keoghan and Liam Carney
Running time: 1 hour and 40 minutes
MPAA rating: R for some strong violence, pervasive language, drug use and brief nudity

by Fiona Underhill

“Don’t go thinking that all violence is the work of hateful men, sometimes it’s just the way a fella makes sense of his world.”

Having already gone through a fairly extensive festival run under the name Calm with Horses, this Irish independent film has had a name change for US release. The two titles are interesting because they reflect both sides of the coin that make up protagonist Arm’s life. There is his family life, made up of his estranged partner Ursula (Niamh Algar) and autistic son Jack (Kiljan Moroney), who does horse therapy sessions with Rob (Anthony Welsh). But ex-boxer Arm (Cosmo Jarvis) lives under the constant shadow of violence because of his best friend Dympna (Barry Keoghan) and his whole family of Devers, including uncles Paudi (Ned Dennehy) and Hector (David Wilmot), who form some kind of drug-dealing Irish mafia. Arm is the ‘arm of the law’ for the Devers family, a ‘heavy’ who is content with roughing up a few wrong’uns in return for cash. But when they want him to go further, it inevitably leads to problems.