The tension of Calvary is fitful at best, and much of the movie trips into silliness, but in Brendan Gleeson -- in his proud bearing and his lamenting gaze -- we see the plight of the lonely believer in a world beyond belief.

Brendan Gleeson delivers a typically towering yet warm performance in "Calvary." Too bad the movie's something of a mess.

It serves as a marvelous showcase for Gleeson, a great old-lion actor who shows, in the film's many close-ups, a quiet, weary yet unbending faith, and a face on which emotion can play like a wave on the beach.

Both the comedy and the violence are watered down by a dark melancholy.

A dark and profoundly funny tale of an institution failing its sheep and its best shepherds.