Movie Review: Into the West:

This is one of those off-beat and what is considered a "sleeper" movie. Just why they call them sleepers I'll never know, but one I highly recommend Into The West.

This 1992 movie takes place in an slum in Ireland. The main character, "Papa" Reilly played by Gabriel Byrne is a widower bringing up his two boys Ossie (Ciarán Fitzgerald) and Tito (Rúaidhrí Conroy). Reilly is a bitter man...he still grieves over the death of his beloved wife and is trying to forget not only her death, but his roots. He had once belonged to a group of people known as "Travelers"...sort of the Irish equivalent of bohemian type gypsies who forsake the status quo and the normal way of life.

One day, Reilly's father-in-law "Grandpa" comes to visit him and his two sons. He arrives riding in a traditional "travelers" type caravan along with a magnificent beautiful white horse that he has named Tír na nÓg. which is the Irish for Land of Eternal Youth. The horse is wild, unnameable, no one can ride him, yet somehow, the younger son of Reilly manages to do so. It's as if they are destined to be with one another.

The Grandpa is one of those classic storytellers or in the Irish known as sennacie and weaves a wonderful tale one night to his grandchildren and some of their young friends around the campfire all about the Land of Eternal Youth.

When the two boys leave to go home, the horse decides to follow them and they smuggle the horse into their apartment. A neighbor however catches sight of the horse and calls the police and animal control in which they take the horse away and is later auctioned off to a horse breeder who enters the horse in a horse jumping contest.

One day, while the two boys are in a local video store trying to pick out a western video movie, as they are hooked on them, on the TV that is in the shop, the TV just happens to be switched on to a horse jumping competition...and Ossie, the younger boy recognized the horse as his beloved
Tír na nÓg.

What happens is the chase of a lifetime as the two boys manage to go to the horse jumping events and steal the horse back and they ride "into the west" where their journey begins. They are followed not only by the police, the horse breeder who had bought the horse, but by their father who goes back to the old traveler settlement and gets the aid of his traveler friends.

This is a charming movie and a tearjerker as the end will testify and no, no one dies, but there is a heart warming healing of past wounds which are mended, particularly by their father, Reilly.

If I were to rate this movie I'd give it 9 stars.

Directed by Mike Newell

Cast:

Papa Reilly...........Gabriel Byrne
Kathleen................Ellen Barkin
Ossie......................Claran Fitzgerald
Tito.........................Rualdhri Conroy
Grandfather..........David Kelly