The Mighty Celt

Young Donal (McKenna) helps out at Joe's (Stott) greyhound kennels; when Donal takes a fancy to a young greyhound, naming him The Mighty Celt, Joe promises Donal can keep him if the dog wins three races. Meanwhile, Donal's mother Kate (Anderson) tries to come to terms with the reappearance of old flame and former on-the-run IRA man O (Carlyle), who has come back to Belfast in the wake of the Good Friday peace agreement. A more serious film than last year's Man About Dog, which also featured Northern Irish youngsters and greyhound capers, The Mighty Celt has for its backdrop a storyline that includes dissident Republicans; the outworkings of the two main stories, that of Donal's struggle to keep his new dog and Kate and O's tentative romance, are stitched into the backdrop, with Stott as the lynchpin that holds the various strands together. With good performances from all involved (Anderson's Norn Iron accent is entirely acceptable, and young Tyrone McKenna debuts with an assured and precocious turn), The Mighty Celt works as a kitchen-sink drama writ large. Elliot directs with winning simplicity, although his script is lacking in narrative tension: there is an inevitability to proceedings that might well be intentional, but which saps the life out of the last reel.