TERRIBLE TWO Chris Walley and Alex Murphy play dimwitted Conor and Jock.
Cinema
Ciara Galvin
THE Irish do some things very well – brewing, distilling, having the craic, writing poetry and making films. Ireland, the land of saints and scholars … and ‘scobes’.
Homegrown film ‘The Young Offenders’ is a perfect example of the aforementioned – good film and, well, scobes.
According to ‘Urban Dictionary’, a ‘scobe’ is a variant of a ‘skanger’ or ‘scumbag’, a species of Irish society identified by a certain set of characteristics and features.
A scobe wears a baseball cap, perched ‘precariously as high as possible on their head’, sports a haircut that is entirely shaven except for the fringe along with pathetic looking fluff above the upper lip. The scobe sports the latest in Reebok, Nike and Adidas apparel.
Conor (Alex Murphy) and Jock (Chris Walley), the protagonists in ‘The Young Offenders’, and are the quintessential scobes of Cork City, upper lip fluff and all.
Based on the events surrounding the 2007 cocaine seizure off the Cork coast, the two ‘bois’ hatch a plan to cash-in on the drugs seizure and become millionaires.
Being more ‘Rodney and Del Boy’ than Goldman Sachs, the lads hit off on a road trip that could change their lives and make them grow up a little bit along the way.
What makes this Peter Foott-directed road comedy a complete joy to watch is the duo of Walley and Murphy, a Rubberbandits-type pair that you can’t help but like.
Yeah they’re scumbags and yeah they do bad things sometimes, but deep down they’re not bad people, and as the story unfolds one begins to question whether their behaviours are caused by their inherent environments.
Hilary Rose and PJ Gallagher, they of hidden camera show ‘Naked Camera’, also play a blinder. Rose’s character, Mairéad, is a paired-back and admirable version of her Republic of Telly persona ‘Handy Sandie’. A single mother trying to raise her impressionable teenage son, Conor, Mairéad is doing her best, even if that means that dinner is a dry chicken kiev with tomato ketchup.
‘Mam cooks like she hates food, and the person she’s cooking for’, Conor says at one point.
The dialogue in this is top class, witty, rude and intrinsically Irish. The level of verbal abuse (banter) between Conor and Jock, and indeed between Conor and his mother, works perfectly.
‘The Young Offenders’ is a mix of ‘Dumb and Dumber’, ‘Kevin and Perry Go Large’ and ‘Man About Dog’, but along the way it brings more to the table, with some dark moments and snapshots of the realities behind some closed doors.
The film doesn’t shy away from violence, and it shows Jock having to deal with an alcoholic father who beats him. On the other hand, Mairéad represents single mothers all over Ireland dealing with keeping their children on the right track despite lack of support.
At 83 minutes, this film strikes a great balance of thought-provoking material and mad scenes showing people dodging rogue nails from a nail gun whilst the Sultan’s of Ping song ‘Where’s me Jumper’ blares.
Simply scobey brilliant.
Rating 10 out of 10
