I WENT DOWN (1998)

I WENT DOWN (The Shooting Gallery, R) Assuming you buy the premise that hit men can be droll -- a convention as well-established these days as the expectation that dogs in movies never die -- then Irish filmmaker Paddy Breathnach demonstrates that the only thing more charming than a bumbling gangster is a bumbling Irish gangster. Certainly the two unlikely foot soldiers yoked in this rollicking, original, visually fresh dark comedy are as droll as they come outside of a Frank McCourt story, and as brimming with the gift of gab, too. Gentle Git (a mournful, cute Peter McDonald) and unpredictable Bunny (a beefy, remarkable Brendan Gleeson, who stormed Cannes with his burning performance in The General) are thrown together on a shady errand by a mob boss with a score to settle against another unsavory goodfella (Peter Caffrey). By movie's end, when the betterfellas prevail, the duo's utter, barmy ready-for-export Irishness will have disarmed any curmudgeons concerned that these lads are in fact dangerous men who shoot loaded guns when not trudging through bogs and arguing about driving directions. A-