Woodyanders Review of Six Shooter

Six Shooter (2004)

A truly startling and wickedly funny black comedy treat

[10/10 · 17 September 2006]

Morose middle-aged Donnelly (a typically terrific performance by the always great Brendan Gleeson) takes a long and grueling train ride home following the tragic sudden death of his wife. Donnelly encounters both a young couple whose baby has just passed away and a brash, rowdy, irrepressibly snotty punk kid (splendidly played with deliciously malicious glee and gusto by Ruaidhri Conroy) who antagonizes his fellow hapless passengers with his incessant coarse language and blithely rude, callous and offensive behavior. Writer/director Martin McDonagh, an acclaimed Irish playwright, deftly mines a fresh, startling and often uproariously twisted line in black-as-coal gallows humor in this offbeat and inspired meditation on death, grief and loss. This is hardcore merrily macabre black humor that's as dark as the best chocolate and every bit as tasty (the exploding cow gag is especially gut-busting!). Moreover, the performances are across-the-board fantastic (Conroy in particular is simply amazing), the photography of the lush Irish countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, and the story offers a wondrous wealth of delightfully warped and shocking surprises. Overall, this stupendous Oscar-winning short film qualifies as 30 sublimely nasty and frequently flat-out sidesplitting minutes worth of pure black comedy gold.