The Playboys (1992)

Men Suck, as Usual.

The Sheriff Rapes a Younge Girl, who goes on to have a baby and will not name the father of the child. She is ostrasized by the town. When she meets a new man, an actor the sheriff is jelous and interfers in her life and threatens it and the actors life. The sheriff ends up dead. August 28, 2008

Worth the time spent watching

Although this is not a "Great" film, it is a good representation of a time period and life in that time. It shows the drama of life and how people adjust to make that drama tolerable. You have to watch it more than once to see the silliness of the characters, but it is worth the time. Irish cinema is wonderful. January 14, 2008

Finney's The Spine of This Slow, Soft-Focus Film

"The Playboys,"(1992), is a drama/romance/comedy set in a pretty, provincial Irish village of the 1950's. The rural landscape of County Cavan is lovely in this film directed by Gillies MacKinnon, who was born in the urban, unlovely town of Glasgow, Scotland. The clothes, cars and houses look authentic and atmospheric, the dialogue's good, and there's plenty of "crac," that Irish wit.

The movie, which is full of faces familiar from other Irish films, concerns one Tara Maguire, played by the American Robin Wright, who's been delivered of a boy child and refuses to identify his father. (This part was to have been played by Annette Bening, but she turned up pregnant.) Tara's sister Brigid, played by Niamh Cusack, of the well-known Irish theatrical family, is solidly supportive. Adrian Dunbar - has a modern Irish movie ever been made without him ?- plays a local farmer who kills himself, possibly over bad luck with his cattle, possibly because of Tara's refusal to marry him. She's also refusing to marry the older man, the local Constable, Brendan Hegarty, who, we come to learn, actually is the child's father. As played by an adamantine Albert Finney, he really is the spine of this slow, low-key, soft-focus film. For although the village priest is calling Tara out from the pulpit, the locals can't be too hard on her: they've known her from her own birth.

Into this pregnant situation comes a threadbare traveling troupe of actors, led by Freddie, the marvelously talented Milo O'Shea. Tom Casey, played by the American, handsome blue-eyed Aidan Quinn, is the leading man of their performances. Performances that are always eccentric, and frequently downright hilarious. And Tara, who rather unusually for the time and place, insists on marrying for love, sure loves Tom. Tara is portrayed, possibly also rather unusually for the time and place, as a woman who stubbornly insists on standing on her own, and supporting herself and her child: this she ably does by sewing, and by a spot of comic-relief smuggling across the nearby border of Northern Ireland now and then. There's also a subplot about the activities of the Irish Republican Activities that never amounts to much. Despite the fact that a barn is actually burnt down during its course, "The Playboys"is no barn-burner; but it's a charming, romantic little comedy to curl up with of a chilly evening.
November 29, 2007

Nice, but a little slow

This is a nice performing of Aidan Quin and Albert Finney. But the plot is kind a slow, first quarter of the movie a could say is boring, then begun to get better until a very nice end.
It's not bad, but isn't good nether.
Try to see it before buying it. Know a few persons that love it... so, you can July 19, 2007

One of 1992's best films

I know 1992 was a long time ago so I'll remind you of the film's nominated for the best picture Oscar that year: "Unforgiven", Clint Eastwood's cowboy movie with a modern edge that won the award, and competitors "The Crying Game", "A Few Good Men", "Howards End" and "Scent of a Woman". This film, "The Playboys", is better than all those films, in my opinion.

A story about secrets, love, fidelity, irony and small town life, "The Playboys" features a stunning performance by Alber Finney and likely the best film work of Aidan Quinn's career as they compete for unwed-but-pregnant Robin Wright, a young woman in a small Irish town that won't disclose the father of her child circa 1957.

While the film is not completely convincing in its representation of the 1950s (who knows what rural Ireland was like then?) it nonetheless remains an involving drama about people, circumstances, personal honor and what is important in life. Shane Connaughton's script plays the competition between the two men -- the standup cop Finney, representing good and irony, against actor-playboy Quinn, representing free spirits --against the overall conservatism and situational condemnation of village residents. The result is good fun and enticing cinema verite.

Filmed in Ireland, "The Playboys" is a wonderful movie that avoids nonsense and sentimentality, ends realistically, and asks the viewer what happenend when it's all over. It is a story on a lesser scale than some of the year's Oscar contenders; yet it stands up to all of them in terms of intelligence, viewer involvement, acting, onsite filming and the fulfilling the vision of its screenwriter. It's a film and story you won't soon forget. February 25, 2007

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