PERRIER’S BOUNTY (15).

Thriller. Cillian Murphy, Jim Broadbent, Jodie Whittaker, Brendan Gleeson, Michael McElhatton, Don Wycherley, Liam Cunningham.

Foul-mouthed and gleefully violent, Perrier’s Bounty is an edgy black comedy about one man's turbulent journey through the lawless streets of Dublin.

Scripted by award-winning playwright Mark O’Rowe (Intermission, Boy A) and punctuated with scenes of torture, Ian Fitzgibbon’s film is not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

Animal lovers will certainly have to avert their eyes when a pair of beloved dogs suffer an inglorious fate at the hands of the eponymous gangster.

However, O’Rowe is a writer who serves up large portions of just desserts for his morally flawed characters – thus, the innocent usually emerge battered and bruised and the guilty are punished in the most fitting and brutal fashion.

Michael McRea (Murphy) owes a considerable amount of money to kingpin, Darren Perrier (Gleeson), who calls in the debt, giving Michael less than a day to come up with the cash or pay with his legs.

Two henchmen, Ivan (McElhatton) and Orlando (Wycherley), enforce the point by paying Michael a visit in his flat.

“You've four more hours until Perrier’s judgement comes down,” says Orlando.

Heading into the night, Michael agrees to help a career criminal, The Mutt (Cunningham), rob a house for a cut of the profits – a seemingly foolproof scheme that ends with Michael on the run with his grouchy, estranged father Jim (Broadbent) and traumatised next-door neighbour, Brenda (Whittaker).

The relationship between Michael and his old man feels the strain when Jim reveals a terrible secret: “I’m dying, don’t you know.”

The next time he falls asleep he will shuffle off his mortal coil so Jim gulps down instant coffee to try to stay awake.

Somehow, Michael must get his cut of the profits from The Mutt, declare his true feelings to Brenda who is broken-hearted and suicidal after another failed relationship, and settle his debt with the increasingly unhinged Perrier, while avoiding an early grave. Easy.

Perrier’s Bounty treats shocking acts of cruelty as an everyday occurrence, whether it is Orlando taking a baseball bat to Michael’s legs or Perrier shooting nonchalantly at the four-legged companions of The Savage Canine Vernacular.

Murphy meets each misfortune with a look of wide-eyed disbelief while Broadbent is hysterical as a crazy, sleep-deprived old timer, looking out for his boy as long as he can stay conscious. Whittaker’s love interest is undernourished but she shares pleasing screen chemistry with her blue-eyed leading man.

O’Rowe's script is peppered with some choice one-liners, not least when Perrier learns two of his henchmen were gay lovers. The pace rarely slackens and Fitzgibbons ensures the final showdown draws copious blood. XXX