Cynical attempt to bring humor to an all too familiar tragic tale of a young boy who suffers physical, emotional & psychological trauma. Acting is excellent but you cannot make murder funny. I also did not like the farcical portrayal of EVERYONE who practiced the Catholic faith, as if they were all terribly superstitious. Sinead O,Connor as the Blessed Virgin saying “For Fu__’s sake!” Should have ignited the film the first time it played in theatres

Very sad movie with whatever the boy went through in his life.

1001 movies to see before you die. A bizarre Irish film showing the culture there in a way that was blasphemous, black and funny at the same time. It crossed a few lines for me though and hence its rating, but it still kept my interest. It could have been much cleaner and been more approachable. It was on youtube.

The best acting performance from Eamonn Owens!

One of director Neil Jordan's lesser-known films, The Butcher Boy follows the exploits of Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens), the product of an alcoholic father and mentally mother, who makes his way through life in a small working-class Irish village by means of violence and intimidation, a sociopath in the making. It is a bleak and harrowing existence, but the film is infused with an odd energy thanks to the performance of Owens, as well as Jordan's direction, who allows the camera to roam about in a manner consistent with the movie's 12-year-old protagonist…or would that be antagonist? What makes The Butcher Boy so compelling is the fact that while you have hope for Francie's future, it seems inevitable that things will turn out poorly for him. Despite this, the atrocities at the end of the film still come as an unwelcomed shock.

I last saw this movie in the late 90's. It messed me up in my late twenties, but left such an impression on me that I still remember it. It was a glimpse into the madness of a troubled little boy, and how he came to be. At the time, it reminded me a lot of Pink Floyd's The Wall in terms of uncomfortable viewing it gave me. But clearly it left its mark, if I can still review it in 2022 and make out all of its parts. That's the mark of a good movie.

Strange to see an Irish film from the '90s that doesn't have Brendan Gleeson somewhere in ... nope, no wait, there he is. A black comedy that leans more heavily towards tragic drama to develop its main character than its interesting surrealism, The Butcher Boy shows hints at a bizarre and entertaining take on adolescence and family breakdown but spends too much time on the grounded, distressing elements to keep the energy and interest level high. An exasperated chase scene finale that joins the cultural escape of an young midcentury kid with real-world brutality (equating his murder of the woman that he perceives as having stolen his best friend with a Lone Ranger-esque adventure) is too fun of a finale to really be satisfied with a buildup that is mostly just miserable moping and the occasional conversation with a vulgar Virgin Mary. Still, demonstrates a capable understanding of the climate of confusion and unpredictability of the Cold War coupled with American Western swagger, each coalescing into major personality traits of a disaffected kid with a bad home life. A slow start, but a strong finish, and featuring an unusually good performance from a child actor in Eamonn Owens' Francie, who convincingly delivers a unique combination of frustration, determination, and cruelty. And let's be clear, this kid was a little twerp well before his life started falling apart. (2.5/5)

Chirpily narrated by an uncredited performance from Stephen Rea and diabolically acted by newcomer Eamonn Owens, Neil Jordan's co-adaptation with author of source novel Patrick McCabe confesses the titular abused juvenile delinquent's troubled realm of fantastical savagery and trenchant disenchanted irreverence.

Whimsical movies always have my attention, and most of the times I end up loving them, but in this case I was never brought in. Story and emotions don't seem to travel together.

Hard to watch but sadly very relevant for todays society, this film is visceral and gripping, excellent acting especially by Eamonn Owens and beautifully filmed, it depicts Irish small town ideology with a razor sharp focus, its both uncompromising and horrifying, watch it, you'll never be the same again....

The Butcher boy is a film about childhood, friendship later betrayed, a world that seems only be ready to deceive you and the response from this child in the border of fantasy and insanity.A tragic comedy well directed and performes for the young new actor

Neil Jordan have a good eye for young actors and actresses so Eamonn Owens is the main fuel of the movie, the rest is hard to follow mostly becouse of chaotic dialogues.

Dark, surrealistic tragic comedy. I think the Americans would be lost by the Monaghan accent...they don't pronounce their "r"s.

It's a very good black comedy film and I'd say it's one of the best Irish films I've ever seen! I'm Irish and I live in Dublin, Ireland. I have it on DVD.

Tries too hard to emulate the disturbing nature of Peter Jackson's 1994 character study Heavenly Creatures, but doesn't seem to understand what made that movie so brilliant. The Butcher Boy is sometimes funny, though not nearly enough, sometimes interesting, though never gripping, and it reaches a pretty disturbed climax, though it takes far too long to get there, and it doesn't feel as though it's rising to that moment nor does it succeed in completely convincing me of its character's transition into madness.

Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's dark, sometimes it's disturbing, sometimes it's horrific and sometimes it's sad. Making "The Butcher Boy" is a brilliant-weird film. This film brings us into a life about a boy struggling with violence, a broken friendship, his active imagination and his mental illness with hilarious narrator and horrifying-sad ending.

Pretty uneven film that teeters from silly growing up movie to downright demon child. Francie is one ROTTON kid, manipulating, foul mouthed and violent, you just don't know where he'll wind up. And that's the problem with this, because Neil Jordan seems to veer from Home Alone humor to The Omen at a turn of the hat. The kid here is great, and there's some turns here that made my mouth drop, but this is definitely a movie I wouldn't rush to see again.

A film just for shocks.

Entertaining, disturbing, and intriguingly manipulative of one's moral compass, this brave film takes a fascinating leap into the psychology of an emotionally disturbed boy and his optimistic blurring of the lines between imagination and derangement.

Eamonn Owens is absolutely fantastic as Francis Brady in this black comedy based on the novel by Patrick McCabe about a rebellious boy growing up in 1960's Ireland. Son of an alcoholic father and a mother who makes frequent trips to the funny farm, Francis gets up to the usual mischief a young boy gets up to but goes a step too far and winds up in care himself where he slowly descends into mania himself. It's a brilliant central performance from the young lad and Neil Jordan's meticulous direction captures the period perfectly.