Rotten
Director Neil Jordan and Patrick McCabe adapted McCabe's novel for this bland 1998 shocker that fails miserably as satire, character study, and anything else it might have aspired to.
Lisa Alspector, Chicago Reader
The Butcher Boy
This little piggy laughed all the way home!
1998 · 1h 50m · R
Comedy, Drama
Directed by
Neil Jordan
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The Butcher Boy
Overview
Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense. When Francie's world turns to madness, he tries to counter it with further insanity, with dire consequences.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
77%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Though the movie sometimes looks as if the authentic Irish wit, colour and blarney has been filtered through the sensibility of a Bunuel or Polanski, Jordan never allows the surreal/expressionist aspects to dominate.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Fresh
Neil Jordan's most accomplished and brilliant film to date, Butcher Boy is satisfying as faithful literary adaptation and inense cinematic experience that brings to mind in theme Kubrick's equally brilliant Cloakwork Orange.
Emanuel Levy, Variety
Fresh
I find myself in an embarrassing position: I think this is a great movie, but I'm not sure.
David Denby, New York Magazine/Vulture
Fresh
Instead of bathing his story in the warm, lyrical glow of an Irish lament, Jordan mixes domestic tragedy with fierce gallows humor and the stark horror of a Goya painting.
Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle
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