The Lads is a 2018 Irish film directed by Ian Adams.
A Black Comedy, it revolves around three childhood friends - responsible Paul, lazy Scott and wild card Fionn. Their small town lives receive a bit of excitement when Fionn - who is unemployed and makes his money robbing houses - turns up with an envelope full of €5000 that he claims to have "found". He offers to split it three ways with his friends...
...until two weeks later when the three boys are assaulted by a trio of gangsters in balaclavas. It turns out Fionn stole the money, it was ten thousand instead of five and the boys have two weeks to pay all of it back.
The full film can be seen on YouTube at this link
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Tropes:
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: The night out leads to the boys spending €600 on drink and drugs, and getting into a nasty fight in a nightclub bathroom.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite getting in several bloody fights, the boys never suffer anything worse than a black eye or mild cut. Fionn gets pretty nastily battered in the final fight and it looks like he's lost two teeth, which presumably he got replaced in the Time Skip.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Paul (big), Scott (thin), Fionn (short).
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Male examples. Paul is the blond, Scott is the brunet and Fionn is a light brown substituting redhead.
- Brief Accent Imitation:
- Scott attempts to rob someone while putting on a Polish accent. The woman he robs is Polish.
- Scott later mocks Paul's East London accent by doing a spot-on imitation.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Paul's boss Brian is a bit kooky but has managed to save loads of money to the degree that lending the boys the 10,000 is a drop in the bucket to him.
- Chekhov's Gag: Paul swears to his boss that Fionn doesn't need a job when he's literally robbing houses for money. This bites him in the ass later when Brian reveals this and sets up a Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Paul's boss Brian appears in an early scene and later forms a part of the third act where the boys try to rob his house.
- Chromosome Casting: The cast is almost entirely male except for a mother at the hardware store, two would-be mugging victims and a co-worker of Scott's.
- Comic Trio: Scott comes up with outrageous ideas, Fionn is silly enough to go along with them, and Paul half-heartedly tries to protest.
- Country Matters: Brian delivers this C-bomb regarding Paul."What a cunt."
- Didn't Think This Through:
- They plan to make €10,000 by mugging a few people on the street. At the end of one day, they've made €50, and they're down a tenner because Fionn gave their victim change.
- They plan to rob Paul's boss Brian in the hopes that he'll just give them his safe's combination. Brian later points out that Paul could have just asked him for help.
- Disney Death: Fionn is seen getting his head smashed into the floor and Paul and Scott spend a few agonising moments thinking he's dead. Turns out he's fine.
- Distant Finale: The epilogue is a year later where Scott has now been promoted to supervisor, Fionn is working with Paul and things have returned to normality.
- Easily Forgiven: Brian forgives the boys for breaking into his house, knocking him out, punching him several times and stabbing him with a screwdriver with the intent to steal his money. He does sit back and watch them get into a bit of a fist fight, and busts Paul for lying - so clearly he saw that as adequate comeuppance.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: In the ending scene Scott and Fionn's newfound responsibility are marked with different hairstyles, and Scott being clean shaven. Paul has likewise grown a goatee to reflect loosening up a bit.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If you look at Fionn's checklist of houses to rob, you can see that one of them is a funeral home. And he's already hit that one!
- Fighting Irish: The boys get into several fights in the film, only one of which is caused by drunkenness.
- Freudian Trio: Scott is the loud abrasive Id, Paul is the more responsible and rational Ego, and Fionn is the Superego that's along for the ride.
- Groin Attack:
- During one nasty squabble, both Paul and Scott get head-butted in the groin.
- Fionn in a particularly icky way in the climactic fight.
Scott: Did you just put your teeth around his cock? - Heroic Second Wind: While nearly being strangled to death, Paul grabs a nearby pen and stabs his attacker. This leads to him helping the others.
- Hilarious Outtakes: The end credits contain a few.
- In Da Club: The boys hit one on their night out, and get into a fight in the bathroom.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Scott tries to do this to get Brian to give them the combination to his safe. It doesn't work.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After Fionn's attempt at robbery.Scott: Fionn, did you really rob someone and ask for change?Fionn: Yes, and we'll not talk about it anymore, thank you very much.
- Liar Revealed: Paul being busted for preventing Fionn from being hired at his office.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Scott stabs Brian in the leg with a screw driver, and he never seems to show any ill effects afterwards.
- Never My Fault: Scott doesn't seem to get that being rude to a customer because her son woke him up from a nap is him being in the wrong.
- The New Irish: Paul is an English boy who has presumably lived in Ireland for years. He and Scott also try to rob a Polish woman.
- Nice Mean And In Between: Fionn would the nice one, as he's more innocent and only causes trouble through sheer stupidity and no malice of his own. Scott is abrasive and chews the others out whenever he can. Paul is the most sensible, but does have a tendency to look down on the others.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The boys return the €10,000 through legal means but the gangsters still try to kill them.
- Not So Above It All: Paul often tries to take the moral high ground, but takes part in plenty of the wackiness too.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Brian takes a brick to the head and goes unconscious for twenty minutes, but wakes up otherwise fine.
- Perma-Stubble: Scott has this, and it's lampshaded by his cousin."Grow it or shave it, you look like a fucking twelve year old!"
- Pet the Dog: After their night out, Fionn happily gives Scott €1500 to pay off his car insurance.
- Pity the Kidnapper: Paul and Scott try to rob two men and pull them behind an alley. The sounds of a fist fight are heard, and the two men walk out unscathed.
- The Pollyanna: Despite facing certain death for most of the film, Fionn remains quite positive throughout.
- Terrible Trio: The gangster has two henchmen. One seems to be a Fionn-like idiot, overlapping with The Psycho Rangers.
- Time Skip: After the drunken night out, we skip ahead two weeks to when the boys have already spent all the money.
- You Didn't Ask: Brian says he would have happily lent Paul the money if he had actually asked. Which he does.
