Syl Martin McDonagh begins the story as a middle-aged man learns of his wife's death. He takes a train to Dublin, Ireland where he encounters a troubled young man and a couple in despair. There is a lot of death and despair in this short film even by today's standards. THere is a lot of needless violence and destruction especially with the cow and innocent white rabbit. The middle-aged man's encounter with the young man is troubling. The kid makes rude and insensitive comments to the young couple who lost their son the night before. There is a lot of death in this short film. Martin McDonagh is a promising and accomplished playwright and director. This short film was included on the dvd of "Three Billboards"

framptonhollis From the brilliant and twisted mind of Irish playwright/filmmaker Martin McDonagh, 'Six Shooter' is a dark (and I mean DARK) tragicomedy about death. McDonagh is certainly a fearless filmmaker in terms of subject matter, and he is always willing to take the darkest route possible, while also being extremely unpredictable and often going to places almost no other filmmaker would even dream of going to. With 'Six Shooter', he practically dares the viewer to laugh along with this genuinely disturbing and sad and shocking story, but he also allows the viewer to cry and shake in emotional intensity while fully absorbing the total absurdity of violence. No wonder the man went on to make such jaw dropping successes as 'Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri'. No wonder.

Joe So this was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film. So intriguing how they done it. Many spend a fortune to get one of those little Oscars, so what was so good about this low budget short movie? We have here 30 mins of mostly three sets of people with some tragedy in their lives which they reveal in one way or the others.Brendan Gleeson is great as always as a brooding big guy, but this time with a burden to carry as big as a rock. On the other hand, the film is stolen by Rúaidhrí Conroy who plays a cold-hearted and motor mouthed young man with a dark secret.It's mostly about the conversations between the characters. There is actually very little "live action". Some dark humour too.Personally, I wasn't blown away by it. I don't know who the other nominees were but surely there were better out there.Not a bad little short story movie, but nothing special in it that will want you to revisit this again.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) I quite enjoyed the director's two feature films "In Bruges" and "Seven Psychopaths", so why not give his Oscar-winning short film a chance. I watched Wes Anderson's very first film starring the Wilson Brothers recently and was slightly disappointed, not so by this one. Not at all.It's amazing how McDonagh succeeds to mix grief and dark humor so well and he always seems to get the best out of his actors. Gleeson's is one of the best portrayals of a grieving widower I've ever seen and Rúaidhrí Conroy (who I thought looks like a rougher version of the young William Gregory Lee) delivers an absolutely convincing performance as a stone-cold sociopath. Why oh why hasn't his career taken off so far. He was amazing. Also, I thought the train, although it didn't really contribute anything to the story, worked wonders as a setting. I almost felt like sitting in there watching the bunch.Being a vegetarian for years I usually tend to feel a bit nauseous when animal violence is depicted graphically on the screen, but I can forgive this one the two scenes (cow, rabbit) because it just fit the story so convincingly. This is nothing short of a must-watch, even if you don't love Gleeson as much as I do.PS. Your general face was ratty.