Domhnall and Brian Gleeson star in the new Irish comedy
Sharon Horgan is listed as an executive producer of Channel 4’s new Irish-set comedy, Frank of Ireland. But it’s hard to imagine a series further removed from the urbane wit of Horgan’s Catastrophe than this supremely crude lark, in which real-life brothers Domhnall and Brian Gleeson play dysfunctional pals.
Frank (Brian) is an unemployed 32-year-old musician obsessed with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and still living with his mother (Pom Boyd) in suburban Dublin. Doofus (Domhnall), his best friend (though not his sibling), works in a convenience shop. Both are essentially sociopaths unable to relate to other humans: with just a little tweaking, Frank of Ireland could be a horror movie about a duo of psychopathic Forrest Gumps terrorising their neighbourhood.
Now streaming on: You re not a kind person, a husband says to his wife of many years, after she won t give a doggie bag to a homeless man who asks for it. This is something he didn t realize and can t live with. There are other people, kind and unkind, in Three Days of Rain, and as a storm crouches over Cleveland, we wonder if it makes much difference. It is not a kind world.
Consider John (Don Meredith), a taxi driver, who has just learned that his son is dead. He runs a red light, is distracted, tells a customer of his loss. The passenger (Blythe Danner) is not sympathetic. I m