Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Coffee_in_the_Clink This should've been Darren Healy's claim to fame; he provides a brilliant performance and a thrilling character transformation as Paul Graynor, a shy photographer who is dragged down an alleyway one night by two men and mugged. They then beat and castrate him for good measure. Paul becomes a recluse, terrified of the world around him. He takes control back; he joins a gym, shaves his head, loses the glasses and takes steroids. He also buys a large hunting knife and carries it around with him. Then he starts to hunt for the men who emasculated him. In essence, Paul turns in to the men who assaulted him, and we are geared up for a shocking, violent climax.With the exception of 'The Commitments' in the early 90's, Irish cinema was a rare beast up until probably the late 1990s and early 2000s, but in all fairness, we have never produced anything worth shouting about. Healy starred in a film called 'Crush Proof' around that time, a film that should've been a lot better than it was, but he nevertheless was superb in that one. He's been a fairly low-key actor over the years and personally I think he would've been perfect for a role in RTE's landmark gangland series 'Love/Hate'.'Savage' is quite a violent film, and one that does stay with you. Director Brendan Muldowney makes good use of the grim Dublin streets in creating a bleak and dangerous atmosphere. The script does a good job building up the tension until it explodes. There's been nothing else quite like it produced on these shores.

Leofwine_draca SAVAGE is a low budget, murky, and rather depressing psychological thriller from Ireland. It's about an ordinary young guy who is mugged and scarred by a gang of street thugs, and who subsequently undergoes a violent transformation into a petty criminal himself. The idea for the film's story isn't a bad one, but unfortunately this is a movie that suffers from the usual flaws of independent cinema.The script is never as hot as it thinks it is and all of the characters are resolutely unappealing. SAVAGE tries to be a powerful piece of movie-making but for most of the running time it just sort of passes you by. I didn't care much for the main character although his physical transformation is a good one. The whole midsection of the film just seems to tread water although it does pick up for a hair-raising climax which is very good indeed; a pity that the rest of the movie doesn't follow suit.

FlashCallahan it's your typical story about a man who is viciously attacked in the most horrid way possible, and then tries his hardest to stand up for himself. It's not the Paul Kersey way that makes you route for the good guy. this is a more sinister tale of coming to terms with your life.First of all, the film is not nice. It doesn't make for pleasant viewing, and there is absolutely no relief or no part of the film after the attack that brings any comfort whatsoever, but what makes the film so compelling is the performances from the leads, and how they handle the material given to them.The savage of the title never gets redemption for what happened to him, he just becomes a loner and spends more time with the thoughts and voices in his head. To us, he is a lonely desperate man, but to others, he is a menace, depicting the people who caused his turnaround.The final ten minutes are truly awful, and very gruesome, and the film finishes abruptly and leaves you feeling dirty.All in all, the film carries some heavy morals about getting revenge, it can eat away at you and turn you into the one thing you despise.The film if viewed in a different way could be a warning about the dangers of steroids.What happens to him throughout the film emulates the typical steroid user (castration) your 'member' shrinks, you go bald, you become depressed and you become aggressive.a remarkable film

Corpus_Vile Paul Graynor (Darren Healy) is a press photographer who tends to catch the seedier parts of life, be it drunken fighting or trying to get glimpses in court of convicted rapists. His father is an invalid, confined to a nursing home, and while visiting, he strikes up a relationship with his dad's nurse Michelle. (Nora Jane No one) Returning home from a date, he is accosted and viciously assaulted by two thugs who not only beat him senseless, but castrate him, leaving him a physical and emotional wreck. At first afraid to leave his house, and then afraid on the street, he eventually seeks empowerment via self defense classes and sessions in the gym, where he bolsters himself with steroids he scores off some friendly Russians. Then anger kicks in, bolstered by nightly reports of violence on the news. Then alienation and rage follows, until finally, Paul's only course of action is brutal bloody revenge...Let's face it, we Irish suck at genre films. The best we can make a stab at is either meh/OK-ayyness such as Isolation, Dead Bodies, Spiderhole or Boy Eats Girl, to the simply crap, such as Crushproof or Dead Meat. Savage though tends to lean towards the more "okay" side of things. It's by no means great, with a rather halting performance from Darren Healy, and due to budgetary constraints, Director Brendan Muldowney unwisely goes the jump cut editing route which is a pet peeve of mine.On a plus side though, it looks quite decent production values wise, is well shot and manages to make my home city of Dublin look nicely grim and foreboding, although in fairness, it isn't much of a stretch to achieve this. The casting in regards to the scumbags is spot on, with them looking and sounding exactly like your average skanger/chav (white trash scum, to any American readers) one can see on my fair city streets at any given time of the day or night.Told in four segments entitled "Fear", "Control", "Anger" and "Revenge", it's more of a slow burning psychological drama as opposed to an exploitative revenge flick, which takes time to get to its payoff, so as a result won't be to everyone's tastes.However, its revenge climax is sufficiently brutal, if somewhat brief, culminating in a realistic enough looking beheading complete with stomach churning sound FX. A preceding revenge scene involving a screwdriver actually made me cringe a bit, so props to Muldowney for that one.So, in conclusion, for Ireland's first revenge film it's... okaaay. Not great, but not bad either. Worth a rental anyway. 6/10 overall.