After he is threatened during a confession, a good-natured priest must battle the dark forces closing in around him.
Calvary is a reasonably good analysis of Irish Catholicism's role in the age of atheism, but it's much more valuable for its depiction of a good man attempting to live and die by his own set of morals.
Anchored by a truly sensational performance from Gleeson, this unexpected blend of passion play, detective story, rural comedy and serious inquiry into faith is destined for classic status.
On the strength of only two films, McDonagh and Gleeson are a director/star team on a par with Ford/Wayne, Fellini/Mastroianni or Scorsese/De Niro. Calvary is gripping, moving, funny and troubling, down to an uncompromising yet uncynical finish.
What follows is an uncompelling comic whodunit (or whowilldoit) with delusions of existential grandeur.
A knock-out. Works like gangbusters on every level.
The film does have a remarkable central figure in Father James. Gleeson plays him with such wry, tender and soul-shattering compassion he ends up making the film impossible to dismiss.
I found it slow, dispiriting and not entirely convincing.
A rich and rare treat for grown-up cinemagoers.
I found myself carried along by this film. There is an exhilaration in its alienation and anger.
Brendan Gleeson surpasses himself as a priest threatened with crucifixion in John Michael McDonagh's follow-up to The Guard.
The wonder of Calvary is that amid all the blarney and black humour, it stands up as a moving and sincere drama about religious faith and the fear of death.
Apart from a slight self-conscious tendency to comment upon itself, McDonagh's script is a fabulous bit of writing with the tidy structure and mythical resonance of a passion play, but idiosyncratic and funny in all of its detail.
This is an honourable attempt to pull together a meditation on Ireland and its religious disillusion, and part of a planned trilogy for Gleeson and McDonagh. You just hope that by the next film McDonagh will bury his themes a little deeper so his film doesn’t keep tripping on them.
Brendan Gleeson
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Cameo, Edinburgh from Friday May 23, 2014, until Thursday June 5, 2014. More info: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/