Savage

2009 "At the end of all humanity."
6.5| 1h25m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 10 July 2009 Released
Producted By: Screen Ireland
Country:
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

An exploration of masculinity and violence. A story of obsession and revenge, as a man tries to come to terms with a brutal, random attack and its consequences.

Watch Online

Savage (2009) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Brendan Muldowney

Production Companies

Screen Ireland

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime.
Watch Now
Savage Videos and Images

Savage Audience Reviews

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.
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.
incubus-0914 This is a story of a man who lost his identity of maleness. This is introduced as a Top 10 disturbing films by a youtube user. So I tried it. For me, this isn't a disturbing movie more like a sad story. The movie consists of 4 parts; Fear, Control, Anger, and Revenge. We can see him changing gradually as the story goes on.Paul (Darren Healy) was attacked by two brats on the street. He couldn't fight back or even scream because he was completely intimidated. He was under a brat's thumb. This incident affected him really bad. Basically He was mentally neutered. He struggles to regain himself as used to be by getting a dagger and a taser, joining a self-defense class, and taking steroids. Nothing really gives him confidence and slowly he gets screwed up. There are people who try to help him; his work mate, girlfriend etc. The trainer of the self- defense class tells him that he is not OK and he also sees a psychiatrist, but he isn't willing to listen to them because his mind is so messed up. Things don't go well for him. His self-esteem is crushed flat.I have to admit that he tries really hard to deal with his problem by himself. It rather pushes him into the edge. He expects more than he can actually achieve. People can only do so much with this kind of state of mind. While ordinary people might have thought of the idea but never actually plan to carry it out, it could be a big progress for a person who suffers from depression if he can live one day without thinking of killing himself. He had to realize that people have their own pace for doing things and, moreover, everyone has a problem. The character Paul is well developed and shows good acting, in fact, he made me feel like supporting him so bad.I can't help thinking that he tries too hard to be someone else but him. He isn't a tough guy or a muscular type, however he seems to consider that's the kind of man he should be. But again it's just not his thing! So of course, he reaches the point of lunacy eventually.Only one part of this movie which was really disturbing for me is when the main character, Paul killed a sheep for the process of retrieving his masculine. Attacking someone or something unresisting is hard to watch. Maybe it was necessary for Paul, but I hated it. This scene actually has a connection to the end which is the biggest reason that I end up rating this movie only 6 although it's a well done film.-------- SPOILER ----------The ending…Paul got the information from police which was that the kids who attacked him has been arrested and are going to be transported. He goes to take a revenge at the site but he missed the chance. After that, while he was walking with anger and frustration, he bumped into two brats (they are totally strangers for Paul) who are trying to brake in a car on the street. Paul changed his targets and beat them up. Finally Paul killed one of them like he did to the sheep…I don't know if he retrieved his peace. It is just sad that he couldn't inflict vengeance on the two kids who attacked him and screwed him up so bad. At least, I wanted Paul to pay back on them although it's still a sad ending. Paul can't go back to normal anymore. However, probably those kids will be out of prison or institute shortly and enjoy freedom because they are under age. What a sarcasm. What a sad story.
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.