Donnybrook Movie Review

Donnybrook (2018)

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Written by: Tim Sutton (written for the screen by), Frank Bill (based on the book by)
Directed by: Tim Sutton
Starring: Frank Grillo, Margaret Qualley, James Badge Dale, Jamie Bell
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
Two men prepare to compete in a legendary bare-knuckle fight where the winner gets a $100,000 prize.

Verdict
This is just a mess. This isn't a story, it's just a collection of scenes that lean towards violence. With flat characters that aren't developed, the violence seems indulgent. It's a movie with a lot of whys. Why do these characters act like that? Why does this movie not develop the characters? Why does it start with a rather mundane scene that occurs later in the movie?
I appreciate that it's not a typical fight movie with the training montage and the defeat half way in that spurs the character to victory at the end, but the fights we do see are lackluster.
Skip it.

Review
This ends up being about dealers, users, and the violence that ensures. The first scene is a guy asking Earl (Jamie Bell) how he got the money to enter the fight. It's a pointless scene other than setting up he needs money for a fight, but we see the same scene again later in the movie. 

This movie thinks it's really cool, but the lack of clear storytelling doesn't do it any favors. I wonder why some of these things are happening, and I have to wonder if the reason be because it's totally awesome.

Margaret Qualley plays Delia.

Angus (Frank Grillo) and Delia (Margaret Qualley) are dealers that leave a path of destruction behind them. Their meth house gets burned down. They kill numerous people in their path. Frank's a piece of work and abusive to Delia, pushing her to kill their supplier. Why did she kill the supplier in that manner? This is a collection of violent scenes. As violent as Frank is depicted, he would have shown up on the police's radar long ago. That or already have been long in jail. This isn't the first time he's killed. The pure savagery is needless and appalling. I'm against violent movies, but this one seems to crank it up in an effort to mask the overall deficiencies.

Frank Grillo and Jamie Bell play Angus and Earl.

I'll give this credit that it's a fight movie without training scenes, hard times, and the mid length defeat that the characters uses as inspiration to finally win when he's on the ropes at the end. I can't really call this a fight movie because there isn't much fighting. This culminates in a no holds barred cage fight that's underwhelming. It's difficult to buy Earl as the ultimate fighter. Angus I could, and of course they end up as the last ones standing because no one else is all that tough.

I don't even know what this movie is about. It insinuates a strange relationship between Angus and his sister, but even that is punctuated by Angus's extreme violence towards his sister.