Cardboard Gangsters 2017

Jayson “Jay” Connelly and his friends in Darndale, Coolock set out to seize control of the local drug trade from the long‑standing kingpin Derra Murphy, Jimmy Smallhorne. Jay and his crew—Dano [Fionn Walton], Glenner [Paul Alwright], and Cobbie [Ryan Lincoln]—find themselves pushed into the underworld after discovering that Jay is cut off from unemployment benefits following a recent DJ gig, and that his mother has been taking loans from Derra Murphy to cover debts. The plan to move into drug dealing on Darndale territory becomes a high‑stakes gambit, a test of nerve, loyalty, and the thin line between survival and ruin. Complicating matters, Jay begins a dangerous liaison with Kim Murphy [Kierston Wareing], Derra’s wife, which strains his fragile romance with Sarah [Toni O’Rourke], placing emotional pressure on two fronts as the violence around them escalates.

Kim’s affair with Jay spirals into a brutal consequence, and the stakes spike quickly. Kim is beaten to a pulp over the affair, a stark reminder of the violence that powers this world. Derra invites Jay to his house with a job offer, only to be rebuffed at gunpoint, a moment that triggers a deadly reckoning. Enraged by the insult, Sean Murphy—Derra’s hotheaded son, Ciaran McCabe—murders Cobbie in retaliation. Jay and his crew strike back, kidnapping and killing Sean as a brutal message. Glenner flees to the suburbs, leaving Dano and Jay behind to weather the storm, while Derra and his faction close in, escalating the chase. Derra’s men hunt down and kill Dano as Jay drags his family and Sarah, now pregnant, on the run to stay one step ahead.

The tension comes to a head at the airport, where a call from Kim asks Jay to rescue her from the Murphy household. In a desperate bid to save his loved ones, Jay lets his mother and Sarah board first, then heads back for Kim. What follows is a devastating revelation: Kim betrays him to Derra’s gang for the murder of her son. Jay is captured and taken to the very lake where he killed Sean, a grim circle that ends with him facing execution, the final image a plane carrying his loved ones to safety as his last sight.

A stark, unflinching look at a community pressed under the weight of decades of crime, the story traces a young man’s attempt to rewrite a deadly script, only to be pulled deeper into a world where loyalty is a currency and trust is scarce.