Six Shooter, the first film by genius playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh, has absolutely everything you could want from a film – philosophical conversations, the conflict between characters, family tragedy, police shootouts and an exploding cow. It is also only 27 minutes long, which proves that a film doesn’t need to be very long to make an impact. What Six Shooter does is construct itself as a brilliantly subversive dark comedy that bears quite a bit of resemblance to a lot of McDonagh’s subsequent work that made him a household name, and he won an Academy Award for this film as well, so that’s always a pleasant bonus of this very odd short film.

Donnelly (Brendan Gleeson) is informed that his wife died that morning. He speaks to her body, trying to come to terms with the fact that she is no longer in his life. On the way home, he sits on the train across from a young man (Rúaidhrí Conroy), a foul-mouthed, vulgar individual who shows very little sympathy for anyone, especially not the young couple seated near him, who has just lost their baby son in a tragic cot death. The two strangers try and get to know each other, mainly because Donnelly’s outlook on life at that specific moment is appropriately bleak, and he finds the boy’s vulgar antics to be distasteful, but secretly enjoys his outlandish personality and finds him quite charismatic, as he provides the no-nonsense dose of reality Donnelly feels he needs to hear if he is ever going to actually move on from the death of his wife. Gleeson is such a consistent actor, constantly giving performances that play on his insatiable everyman charisma that allows him to play characters that can be morally and ethically ambiguous, but always charming and impossible to ignore. In the case of Six Shooter, he is so likable and endearing and uses his natural charms to bring life to a character that is supposed to be a physical manifestation of mourning.

If there was any proof that Brendan Gleeson is one of the best actors working today, you need not look much further than Six Shooter (although his work in McDonagh’s In Bruges and his brother John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard and Calvary are three of the finest performances of the twenty-first century). He is a man stricken with grief after a tragic event, and he looks for some meaning to make sense of everything that’s wrong with the world. Gleeson’s performance, while not particularly heavy in terms of emotion, is subtle and nuanced and he portrays the plight of a man in mourning with such sincerity and grace. It is a change from his archetypal role as the gruff, distant authotarian figure. He displays suitable sincerity here, and while it may not be the definitive Brendan Gleeson performance, it is certainly amongst his most fascinating and complex roles.

As great as Brendan Gleeson is in Six Shooter, this film undeniably belongs to Rúaidhrí Conroy. Conroy serves the purpose to drive this film forward, whereas Gleeson simply exists to react to Conroy’s antics (even if Gleeson is given the best moment of the entire film in the final scene). Conroy’s performance is unhinged, disturbing and utterly hilarious, albeit in a very dark and sinister way. The unnamed character is demented, and is very likely a very shady, dangerous individual – yet he seems like an ordinary vulgar teenager who just wants to cause controversy. Not only is his performance great, he and Gleeson have amazing chemistry, playing off each other well. I made reference to the famous adage of good acting is reacting, and both Conroy and Gleeson manage to bring out the best in each other, with their performances very complex and well-constructed by a pair of actors who understood where this film was heading, and made sure that their characters were prepared for the very dark place McDonagh was going to take them and the audience. I am pretty sure if one thinks about it, they can find some Biblical parallels in this film, with life and death, good and evil and the likes all being present. McDonagh is a profoundly meaningful writer, so I have no doubt there is a deeper meaning here – but I’d prefer everyone else comes to terms with their personal interpretations of this film, that remains relatively open-ended, allowing for multiple views to be expressed from different audience members, each of whom will doubtlessly have different reactions towards this film.

Despite only being 27 minutes long, Six Shooter has quite a lot thematically thrust into it. Themes of mortality obviously play a major part (not only does a six shooter gun play a major role in the climax of the film, it is also a reference to the six deaths in the film)  as well as that of religion – Catholicism is a recurring motif in the works (films and plays) of Martin and John Michael McDonagh, and they almost create a Catholic New Wave movement with their uncompromising look at the religion and its followers. While it is a backdrop in Six Shooter, religion plays a part in showing Donnelly’s loss of faith after tragedy, and the strangely reassuring promise from the mysterious young man that God is always there, he just sometimes has to let bad things happen to remind us of the good. It is odd, considering a few minutes later he was involved in a massive shoot-out with the police.

I’m aware that is a short review – but Six Shooter is a film that has quite a bit to say for itself, and it doesn’t need me to ramble on about its themes. Also, to be honest, there isn’t much to be said about it, other than the fact that it is a subversive dark comedy with great performances, and it ends with the typical sardonic McDonagh conclusion, that makes you laugh but reminds you of the very serious implications of simply existing. It is a complex, nuanced film from a great writer and director, who would use the exposure from this film to make some of the best dark comedies of the current century. Much like his plays and films, McDonagh imbues Six Shooter with serious themes about existence, religion and society, forming a scathing social critique through his unflinching attraction to the human condition. There’s also an exploding cow.