With violent gangsters, a gentrification storyline and a hairdressing competition, this movie can’t figure out what it wants to be
Here is a frantically overdone film that’s all over the place. The script feels weirdly undeveloped, as if it can’t figure out which of two different kinds of film it wants to be: gonzo violent black
comedy or big-hearted romp about hairdressers saving their community from developers.
The setting is the fictional north
Dublin district of Piglinstown. It’s a bit rough, but local businesses are the beating heart of the neighbourhood, including the Deadly Cuts hair salon, run by the fearless Michelle (Angeline Ball). Like everyone else, she is bullied by odious gangster Deano (Ian Lloyd Anderson) demanding ruinous protection money or the place gets smashed up. When this horrible individual swaggers into the salon one afternoon, a chaotic confrontation leads to violence and then a bizarre Ortonesque plan to dispose of the body in a convenient incinerator. Then the hairdressers use Deano’s phone to text all the other gangsters to leave the area alone. (There are apparently no worries about mopping up the blood.)