Aontas – Review

In a story that unfolds backwards, Aontas is about a bank robbery gone wrong. It opens at the end, with a breaking glass reshaping itself right before a hand knocks it off a counter. No, this whole film is not told literally in reverse, however the chapters play out that way, as in the opening chunk is at the end, and then it jumps back to do another segment which leads up to the first, and so on.

As Cáit Doherty (Brennan) sits in the back of an ambulance with a head wound, and local shithead Colly Ó Baoill (Ó Meallaigh) is stuffed into a police car, things are off to an odd start. This is right outside of a small Credit Union in an Irish town. Some kind of chaotic event has happened, yet Cáit decides its time for her to leave and walks away from the medics. A few locals follow her, gossiping about the Credit Union being taken for a million dollars. Maybe there was even a machete used?!

Next, a body is led out on a stretcher… Seems like things inside got violent. What the hell happened in there?! Well, we will find out as the viewer, as the film continues to move backwards. Three women, sisters Cáit Doherty, Mairéad Mhic Cionnaith, and their friend Sheila Boyle mask up to rob this bank, packing a gun and looking for money. As the film continues, we get their motivations and learn more about why this all went down the way it did.

Aontas is well acted and well put together. It is hard to balance a story that moves backwards while revealing the right amounts of information this way, but this script does just fine with the technique, and the director and editor handled it all well. Moving backwards allows us to learn about the women and their lives, while simultaneously giving motive for the actions we know they are going to take.

The runtime is pretty short, so things stay interesting throughout and it moves at a pretty quick clip. There are some nice twist reveals and a few clever moments sprinkled throughout. Plenty of the story causes suspense and tension, which the actors enhance with their performances. This is a solid little crime tale, and is worth a look for fans of twisty stories.