Brilliant Irish revenge thriller streaming on Netflix and barely anyone knows about it

Stephen Porzio

The 2017 movie has a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s been quite a time for Irish movie and TV entertainment. On the film side, we’ve in recent years had the beloved likes of An Cailín Ciúin, The Banshees of Inisherin, Belfast, Calm with Horses, Extra Ordinary, Kneecap and Sing Street – to name just a few.

Plus, on TV, just last week saw the release of the acclaimed Bad Sisters season two and Say Nothing.

But if you’re looking for a gripping recent thriller from the Emerald Isle that may have passed you by, let us recommend to you the 2017 Northern Irish film Bad Day for the Cut.

The movie centres around Donal (Nigel O’Neill), a mild mannered farmer living a quiet existence on a farm with his elderly mother, Florence (Stella McCusker).

That is until one night, intruders barge into Donal’s home and beat Florence to death.

The farmer spotted one of the perpetrators, a mysterious man named Trevor (Stuart Graham). In an effort to eliminate all loose ends from the killing, two other goons return to the farm soon after to try and kill Donal.

Donal – a hunter who is rather handy with a shotgun – dispatches of one and captures the other, a young Polish man Bartosz (Józef Pawłowski).

It turns out Bartosz and Donal both have unfinished business with Trevor and the woman he works for, crime boss and sex trafficker, Frankie (Susan Lynch).

As such, the farmer and his captor wage war against Frankie and her minions. This is as the question lingers: Why would a crime boss go to such lengths to kill a seemingly harmless old woman like Donal’s mam?

Co-written and directed by Chris Baugh (who would go on to make the quite fun Irish vampire flick Boys from County Hell), Bad Day for the Cut did not get a general cinema release but found its way onto Netflix first in January 2018.

It’s lack of a proper theatrical rollout though should not be seen as a mark against its quality. That’s because the movie is essentially the perfect mid-point between the over-the-top one man on a revenge mission thrills of Taken and a quieter, more intimate and realistic reckoning with the notion of vengeance and its fallout as seen in the likes of Blue Ruin and Dead Man’s Shoes.

In terms of the former, you have the taciturn hero, the unlikely buddy partnership, several villainous henchman so evil you can’t wait for them to get their just deserts and a couple of great badass action lines.

When Frankie tells Donal over the phone that his mam was no saint and that “she’s had a target on her back for years,” Donal responds determinately: “She was a wee innocent old doll… Target is on your back now.”

This is after Bartosz and Donal have interrogated Frankie’s evil enforcer Gavigan (an excellent, against type David Pearse) with the help of a scalding iron – the results of which leave Gavigan’s head looking like it has literal devil horns, something which feels apt for the character.

The more thoughtful side of Bad Day for the Cut though comes in its quiet opening stretch establishing Donal and his mother Florence’s relationship and life on the farm, as well as it’s three-dimensional characters (Frankie may be an awful person but she is also a mother whose feud with the farmer all comes down to family).

As the movie goes on and we slowly learn more and more about why Donal’s mother was killed, Baugh and his co-writer Brendan Mullin’s thesis statement becomes clearer.

Without spoiling, this is ultimately a story about how violence begets violence, leading to repeated cycles of carnage.

And to the movie’s credit, it properly commits to this idea – avoiding tidy resolution with its denouement.

While Donal and Frankie’s story may be wrapped up, there is a lingering feeling that the fighting will never end.

It’s a fascinating note to end the film on, given how The Troubles winds up looming large over proceedings – Frankie’s dad was in the IRA we learn, there is also a reference to the Shankill Butchers.

That’s another thing that helps Bad Day for the Cut from its Hollywood contemporaries: it’s unique Irishness.

This can also be found in the little dialogue Donal has, which is full of easy on the ear colloquialisms (even the movie’s title is a piece of agri-slang).

It’s also in the cast of brilliant Irish thespians – we haven’t even mentioned Brian Milligan, Ian McElhinney and Lalor Roddy – all recognisable faces for those who enjoy movies and TV out of the Emerald Isle.

As Irish entertainment is in the news with the likes of Bad Sisters S2, Say Nothing and Small Things Like These, do yourself a favour and check out the hidden gem Bad Day for the Cut on Irish and UK Netflix now.

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