Richard Crouse

For the second time in a year Brendan Gleeson and Michael Fassbender play father and son on screen. Recently Fassbender’s daddy issues with Gleason in “Assassin’s Creed” came to an abrupt Oedipus-esque end. “Trespass Against Us” once again pits them against one another, this time with Irish accents and an anti-establishment attitude.

Gleeson is Colby Cutler, the patriarch of a band of Irish outlaws, including son Chad (Fassbender). They live on the fringes of society, sequestered away in a fleet of trailers in the country. Colby’s influence over the clan is complete. His children are home schooled, taught flat earth nonsense and the ways of thievery.

Chad and Colby butt heads as the son tries make a better life for his wife (Lyndsey Marshal) and children by putting crime and his father’s domineering influence in the rear view mirror.

Before walking the straight and narrow Chad attracts the unwanted attention of the police when he agrees to the proverbial one last job, the robbery of a well-known local judge.

Other than deep seeded daddy issues and a seemingly unattainable desire to do better Chad, as played by Fassbender, doesn’t bring much to the story except for the actor’s charisma. He, and everyone else, are archetypes, done before and done better in other family crime films.

Despite being based on a real life crew of sibling lawbreakers, there’s nothing distinctive enough, or the sympathetic enough about the lot of them to maintain interest

A couple of quirky, pulse racing the action sequences—Fassbender hides under a cow!—inject some spunk into what otherwise is a lifeless affair.