THE STAG: Watch The Theatrical Trailer For The Hilarious Irish Comedy!

An anomaly in a sea of very, very serious films (most of which were quite excellent in their own way) when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, John Butler's Irish comedy The Stag is the sort of film that you quite simply don't generally find at international film festivals. Why? Because while festivals are dominantly interested in promoting things on the more arthouse end of the spectrum Butler and his talented cast have created here a comedy of the purely crowd pleasing sort. And after a week or so of often times very troubling viewing at TIFF what I needed by the time The Stag rolled around was to laugh my ass off. And I did exactly that.

Self-confessed metrosexual Fionan (Hugh O'Conor) doesn't want a Stag Do, but would happily attend the Hen. His concerned bride-to-be Ruth (Amy Huberman) persuades the marginally more macho best man Davin (Andrew Scott) to organise one. Reluctantly he agrees, while doing everything he can to stop Ruth's infamously alpha male brother, known only as 'The Machine' (Peter McDonald), gatecrashing their sober, walking-weekend, excuse for a Stag Party. Not so easily foxed, 'The Machine' tracks them down, sparking to life a wild few days in rural Ireland where the Stags find themselves lost, shot at, stoned and butt-naked. THE STAG is a hilarious and heart-warming journey of friendship, fear, male bonding, and tightly fashioned squirrel skin!
 
Andrew Scott (BBC's Sherlock and Legacy) leads a fresh ensemble cast of rising Irish and British stage, screen and comedy stars including Hugh O'Conor (The Young Poisoner's Handbook, My Left Foot), Brian Gleeson (Snow White and the Huntsman, The Eagle of the Ninth), Andrew Bennett (Angela's Ashes), Michael Legge (Channel 4's Shameless) and Amy Huberman (Comedy Central's Threesome).
 
Award-winning writer/director John Butler (RTE's award winning sketch show Your Bad Self, debut novel The Tenderloin) makes his feature directing debut with this hilarious and touching comedy about male friendship - developed and co-written with actor/writer Peter McDonald (I Went Down, When Brendan Met Trudy), and produced by Rebecca O'Flanagan and Rob Walpole (The Good Man).

Yup, that's Sherlock's Moriarty in one of the leads, it's got a Gleeson and writer / The Machine Peter McDonald is probably best known to most as the father in Chris O'Dowd's fabulous series Moone Boy.

That's the theatrical poster up above - with ScreenAnarchy quote plastered across the top of it - and you can take a look at the new trailer below. Yes, the beginning may seem familiar (it's exactly the same as the previous sales trailer) but things diverge quickly enough.