Ignore the rating

Sometimes in the dog eat dog world of film reviewing one must dive into the darkest depths of cinematic excrement. Such an experience can be enlightening, a firm reminder of what differentiates the sludge from the greatness. Sometimes, and I'm talking about King of the Travelers here, it merely feels like your time has been wasted.

Following up from perhaps the worst Irish film ever made (Between the Canals), director Mark O'Connor shows himself no more capable with this laughably bad pile of excrement. The title illustrates the level of subtlety at play here - this is by no means an intelligent, sensible examination of a misunderstood subculture. It doesn't have a script - it just has pages of hilariously clunky exposition, an endless stream of clichés and the lamest melodrama ever. O'Connor has this rather fascinating ability to make his lean 70 minute running times feel bulked up beyond all reason - there's probably as much interesting plot here as your average Vine video. Like Between the Canals, a pointless and overlong credit sequence is invoked to pretend that this is actually a feature film and not a short film that has been edited improperly.

I should save some of this vitriol for my official critical analysis. Suffice to say, avoid this rubbish at all costs. Mark O'Connor has directed an impressively dreadful freshman and sophomore feature. I can only imagine Stalker completes the hat-trick and reinforces his position as Ireland's worst director. No small feat!