Movies of Note Colin Farrell

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RThe Banshees of Inisherin Everything was fi ne in Inisherin yesterday. And there’s no reason to think that this remote island off the Ireland coast changed overnight. Especially for Pádraic, played by Colin Farrell, who we fi rst meet as he strolls down the country roads to meet his best friend Colm, played by a brooding Brendan Gleeson, before heading to the pub. But when the good-hearted Pádraic fi nds a cold Colm, there’s no denying the island is diff erent. Pádraic, confused by Colm’s distance, leaves for the pub with his head down, and even the bartender notices something awry. Once Colm fi nally arrives at the pub, he insists that Pádraic leave him alone (forever), saying, “I just don’t like you no more.”

The fallout between the former best friends is amplifi ed by the orbiting cast of eclectic islanders, including Dominic, played by Barry Keoghan, and Pádraic’s sister Siobhan, played by Kerry Condon. This brutal, bleak depiction of friends dri ing apart consumes the small community, rendering Inisherin unrecognizable by the end. This is typical director Martin McDonagh, and it works once again.

The Banshees of Inisherin is an elegy to friendship. McDonagh masterfully cra s this grim refl ection on the most cutting form of heartbreak, fi nished with furnishings of whimsical dark comedy and unrivaled banter between Gleeson and Farrell. (This fi lm gi s us another look at the explosive chemistry between the two men, who starred in McDonagh’s beloved directorial debut, In Bruges.)

Farrell delivers a career-defi ning, heart-wrenching performance as Pádraic, chronicling not only a dissolving friendship but also capturing the character’s budding despair. And this despair steadily consumes the two characters and the island as heartbreak is mangled into resentment and bitterness. But Pádraic refuses to abandon this friendship, and in retaliation to Pádraic’s appeals, Colm threatens to cut off his fi ngers with garden shears. And he means it, giving Pádraic the fi nger. Told in isolation, The Banshees of Inisherin is a momentous fable that’s tethered to a familiar agony, and in the end, there are astonishing consequences. —MAXWELL RABB R, 109 min. Limited release in theaters

Black Adam

During the Rock’s promotional tour for Black Adam, a fan sent their baby toward him, through the hands of many strangers. Everyone cheered as the baby, swaddled in pink, landed in his massive arms onstage. Such is the cult that has formed around the man born Dwayne Johnson, now peaking with the cinematic scale-up of a DC Comics side character.

Johnson previously rejected a Black Adam cameo in Shazam! 2, despite the character being canonically familiar as a Shazam villain. It would be an “incredible disservice” to the character, he said, oozing the same hijacking side-quest energy as when he entered, then exited, the Fast and Furious world with an odd, bloated spin-off , Hobbs & Shaw. That movie made big money, and Black Adam will too. The Rock is very popular.

Is his new cult chapter any good, though? Not really. Somehow one of its major problems is that the Rock isn’t in it enough. When he is, he doesn’t speak enough, and when he speaks, he’s doing a stoic fi sh-out-of-water ancient-man bit that’s a worse version of Dave Bautista in Guardians of the Galaxy. The CGI set pieces of the fi ctional, vaguely Middle Eastern city of Kahndaq are dreary and boring. There’s a political parable in there somewhere—something about strongman fascism that maybe, accidentally or not, suggests that there’s a good version of the stuff , but it isn’t cooked well enough to come through. The action occasionally entertains.

The rest is a muddle of virtually nameless side characters doing exposition and failed gags. Pierce Brosnan is wasted in what feels like a lot of scaff olding for future DC movies, or TV shows; rarely do we feel like we are experiencing the thing itself, but rather a setup for a diff erent, later event, which will probably not be the real thing either. —JOHN WILMES PG-13, 124 min. Wide release in theaters v

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