Into the West *** (1992, Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin, Ciarán Fitzgerald, Rúaidhrí Conroy) – Classic Movie Review 3332

Director Mike Newell’s sweet 1992 family-friendly Irish adventure, based on a story by Michael Pearce, is a fairly appealing yarn with a nice touch of the blarney, with a canny screenplay by Jim Sheridan and David Keating.

Gabriel Byrne stars as Papa Reilly, a Traveller with two little lads Ossie and Tito (Ciarán Fitzgerald, Rúaidhrí Conroy) who find a huge magical white stallion by the sea. The boys take ownership, as the younger lad is the only one who can control the horse. They move the stallion into the home of their alcoholic Traveller father, Papa Reilly. The trio become the coolest outlaws as they ride Into the West chased by the police and a capitalist baddie, an underhanded horse breeder who wants to have the horse and gets the cops to seize him.

[Spoiler alert] The boys get the horse back and the three return to the Traveller’s life, liberated from society and the memory of Byrne’s wife, who has died in childbirth.

This family film is a whimsical adventure, overladen with symbols, but it is prettily shot by Tom Sigel, and with delightful kids and a beautiful horse. Alas, there is nothing very much here for Byrne to get his teeth into, though he is ideally cast, and nothing at all for his then real-life wife Ellen Barkin as a fellow Traveller called Kathleen.

Some viewers may succumb to its cute appeal and fey charms, while others may long for some gratuitous sex and violence.

Also in the cast are David Kelly as Grandfather Reilly, Johnny Murphy, Colm Meaney, John Kavanagh, Brendan Gleeson and Jim Norton.

Byrne and Barkin were married from 1988 to their divorce in 1999. They have two children, Jack (born 1989) and Romy Marion (born 1992).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3332

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