The Late Movies: Six Shooter

I really hope you have twenty-seven minutes to spare, because I'd like to show you one of the finest short films I've ever seen. It won the Oscar a few years ago. It's an Irish black comedy called Six Shooter, written and directed by Martin McDonagh, better known until recently as a brilliant-if-dark playwright and the genius behind The Beauty Queen of Lenane and The Pillowman. Briefly, Six Shooter concerns a man traveling home on a train after the death of his wife. He sits next to a loud-mouthed, wise-cracking punk who seems intent on upsetting everyone around him, especially a morose couple who eventually reveal that they've just lost their baby to crib death. From there the story makes so many dramatic and insane plot twists that I can hardly believe it, and yet it holds together brilliantly -- the performances are great, and despite the black depths of the material, it's actually very funny. Be forewarned that the dialogue includes a great deal of NSFW cursing, but if you can get past that, I think you'll really enjoy this. Let me know what you think!

It comes in three chunks: