VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Steineded How sad is this?

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Matt_Layden After a man's wife dies he takes a train back home. On that train he meets a young couple who are also grieving and a young man who doesn't seem to give a damn about other people's emotions. The story is relatively simple, four people on a train, each one has something in common. Someone in their lives has just died, each one deals with it differently. The young kid doesn't seem to give a damn, the couple cry and try to isolate themselves and the man seems to be relatively at ease, clearly hiding his true pain. Gleeson is the man in this role and he is the one who seems to be observing all the emotions on this train. Rúaidhrí Conroy is the motor mouth kid who has a really thick Irish accent, it's almost hard to tell what he is saying. The film belongs to these two characters and they are vastly different from one another. The scenery outside is beautiful and showcases Ireland's cottage, farmland area. It's definitely a place I want to visit one day in my life. The setting of the film is entirely on a train, save for the opening and closing scenes. Despite the film being almost all dialogue, the movement of the train actually kept some tension up. Who is this kid and why he is so psycho. For a short that is 30 minutes, it does its job. Well written, well directed and acted. The film looks nice and is quite the dark comedy. The monologue about the cow is both random and hilarious. The director, McDonagh, went on to direct In Bruges, an even darker comedy. You can see the similarities in the characters and the themes. Both films are shot in the same style, with a soft focus and of course star Brendan Gleeson.This short went on to win an Oscar, I haven't seen the other films nominated so I can't say that this film deserved the win, but it is well done. It does what most films can't do and that is tell a consistent story with interesting characters.

Robert Reynolds This short deservedly won an Oscar in the Live-Action Short category. It's by turns heartbreakingly sad, horrific and very funny. Because I want to touch on some of the details, this is a spoiler warning: For a good number of people (and a rabbit), this is probably the worst day of their lives. Though there are a few incidental characters, this short focuses primarily on four people-a middle-aged man who has just left the hospital after being told his wife has died, a couple who have just lost their infant son and and a chatty, rather obnoxious kid with a mouth on him and who fancies himself a wit. This last rapidly gets on just about everyones last nerve and very nearly comes to blows with the husband over his language and general demeanor. Slowly, everyone comes to learn of the twin sadnesses and the older fellow comes to start listening to the kid, at least a little.While the two older men are out getting tea and smoking, the kid starts to pester the woman and, as she tries to leave, she stumbles, or she's tripped, and the photo she carries of her son is torn badly. Tragedy rears its ponderous head and the train is stopped (ultimately) and two of the quartet of characters exit, stage left, with just the older man and the kid left. The kid and the man talk a bit more (actually, the kid mostly talks and the man mostly listens) until the train stops and the older fellow starts to get off, only to see a few things, put some pieces together, including one off-hand remark by a doctor that morning at the hospital and realizes what's about to happen. When the dust has settled, the older man is alone, center stage, so to speak, and leaves the train-with a memento (to the lasting misfortune of his pet rabbit). The final line is particularly funny if your taste in humor runs towards the macabre.This short is available on a DVD compilation of most of the ten shorts nominated for the two shorts categories given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (two of the five animated shorts aren't included for various reasons, though all five live-action shorts are included and two very good animated shorts are an added bonus, presumably to round out the disc. Both this short and the DVD as a whole are highly recommended.

fowler-16 McDonagh is a brilliant story teller and fully deserves his Tony nominations and his Olivier Award for Best Play (The Pillowman). His critics have questioned his use of casual cruelty as a dramatic device, although he always grounds violence in a social context or connects sadism to particular characters' proclivities. This film is beautifully acted by Brendon Gleeson and especially Rúaidhrí Conroy, sharply photographed, and well directed by McDonagh himself. For technique alone it is Oscar-worthy. But the whole piece strikes me as an absurdist joke with insufficient resonance. This is a mélange of destructions, an indulgence in violence that reduces and parodies McDonagh's better scripts.

noralee "Six Shooter" is the debut written/directed film by playwright Martin McDonagh and now I want to see more of his work.This film is suffused with death, human and animal; we see or hear about intentional deaths - murder and suicide--, natural deaths --by illness or mysterious causes, accidental deaths, and maybe a few I missed in passing.Each character deals with death in a different way, from the psychotic to tearful grief to quiet suffering to violent reactions, and the actors portray each fully.While Brendan Gleeson is the central widower trying to make sense of all these observations of death for his own coping mechanisms, the film is stolen by a motormouth Rúaidhrí Conroy as the most annoying guy to ever be on public transport. He non-stop goes from cheerful to entertaining to manipulative to scary and beyond.While it does go a bit over the top, the cinematography and settings always ground it in grim reality, with a brief excursion into magic realism.The Irish scenery outside the railway car windows does look very pretty, in contrast to what's going on inside.I viewed this film as part of a commercial screening of Oscar nominated shorts.