KILL THE IRISHMAN

Here's another film that barely got a theatrical release and then got dumped onto DVD and Blu-Ray.  Why, oh why?  There's nothing wrong with it!  In fact, it's pretty good.  The story, based on a bestselling award-winning non-fiction book of the same name by Rick Porello, concerns Danny Greene, played by Ray Stevenson, whose potential box-office potential was probably sullied by whichever of the Punisher movies he was in.  Greene is an up-and-coming Irish criminal in 1960's and 70's Cleveland who butts heads with the established Italian criminal hierarchy when he starts muscling control unions that they had failed to infiltrate.  I'm not sure what this movie has more of, car bombs or character actors, but it never hurts to have plenty of those.

Danny Greene is a fascinating figure.  He was a high-school dropout, but a voracious reader and autodidact who lectures his men on a vast array of topics, from opposing deficit-spending to fearing the end of the gold standard to supporting drug legalization for taxation purposes (sounds a little like Ron Paul), he even advocates vegetarianism and jogging (in Cleveland in the 70's!) and compares US involvement in Vietnam to English involvement in Ireland.  His pride in being a modern day 'Celtic Warrior' is not superficial (he gives his girlfriend a claddagh ring awww...) and he becomes one of countless gangsters to be considered Robin Hoods in their communities by supporting impoverished families, paying rent for old ladies, funding scholarships for parochial schools, and donating turkeys during the holidays

When he wrestles control of the longshoreman union away from the unscrupulous moron who stands in his path, he redecorates his newly acquired office in wall-to-wall green carpet to emphasize that the Irish are now in charge, thank you much; I learned from the Internets that in real life Greene took this much further, driving green cars, handing out green pens, and generally incorporating his name into his persona like a super-villain or candy manufacturer.  I wish the movie had played up his flamboyant nature a little more, instead of his badass-ness, but considering how many murder attempts he survived, it was inevitable that his toughness would dominate the proceedings, up to including a spirited montage where he forms a union by beating up every garbage man in the city.

This film is quite obviously inspired by things like Goodfellas and Casino, but manages to pull it off without any outright aping.  It opens with a car-bomb (plenty more coming) and occasionally features some period pop standards to set the mood (you also see the signature Joe Pesci phone smash which only really works in period films now) but the movie stands on its own entirely, even in the music, which is mostly melodic Irish fiddle playing and a few out-of-place thrashing electric guitars.  Maybe I just kept thinking of Goodfellas because I recognized so much of the cast from it: Tony Darrow, Mike Starr, Paul Sorvino and maybe some others I didn't notice.  Steve Schirripa from The Sopranos is here too. 

Also on hand is the evil warden from The Shawshank Redemption, Bob Gunton, who brings a gun to a slap-fight and loses (made me think of Billy Bob Thorton in Tombstone), Bullet-Tooth Tony from Snatch Vinnie Jones as a half-Lithuanian boxer turner enforcer, Linda Cardellini briefly as a generic nagging wife and famed scarred-face character actor Robert Davi, possibly best known as one of the Agent Johnsons in Die Hard but he was also a Bond Villain back when that still sorta meant something (at least he was in the better of the two Dalton films) glowers and mutters effectively as a sinister hitman.  There were tons of people involved with this film; writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh has been involved with many projects good and bad so lets just call him the guy that wrote Die Hard: With A Vengeance and the end credits even listed Tara Reid as one of the executive producers.  Your guess is as good as mine how she helped.

There are two actors competing to steal the show here.  The Patron Saint of making every role count, Walken doesn't have as much screen time as you would expect as the wise Jewish bookie Shondor Birns, but every scene is instantly memorable, from his first line of "You like stroganoff?" through his utterance of the film's title, up to his hilarious story about once meeting Marilyn Monroe and that 'commie writer she married, Archie Miller.'  It's Vincent D'Nofrio who does richer but subtler work (subtler than Chris Walken?  No.....) except maybe his accent, as John Nardi, the only Italian that Danny Greene ever trusted/befriended and the ambitious and independent-minded Mafioso he eventually partners with to take control of Cleveland; their friendship is the most important relationship in the film, initially forming over their mutual interest at keeping outsiders away from the Cleveland crime world but eventually uniting into something more meaningful.

My only real complaint is the CGI car explosions.  Now granted, there are plenty of authentic and impressive blasts of fire in the film, but those only serve to throw the shoddy-looking 'high tech' equivalent into sharper relief.  When we get to see both, we can tell which one looks like crap and which one looks life real fire.  Maybe because of the sheer volume of car-bombs, mailbox-bombs, and house-bombs the filmmakers just couldn't pull them all off the old-fashioned way, but isn't blowing shit up why people make/watch movies in the first place?

America!