Kill the Irishman

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"If any of these maggots from the so-called mafia want to come after me, I'm not a hard man to find." This is the true story of Danny Greene (Stevenson), the man the mob couldn't kill. After an encounter with loan shark Shondor Birns (Walken) ends badly, a $25,000 price is put on his head. The mafia tries everything they can think of, but Danny will not go down without a fight. Being a huge fan of mafia movies, I was really looking forward to this one. While the movie is very good and entertaining, I was a little disappointed. The movie seemed to never keep up a steady pace. Some parts moved very quick and were fun to watch, then the next scene slowed it way down and didn't seem to have any impact. The cast however, makes this movie. There are too many stars to list here but there are about ten known actors that really make this movie as good as it is. If the cast was not what it was this would have been a really bad B movie, but as it stands it is a very entertaining movie to watch. On a side note Val Kilmer is not embarrassing to watch in this (unlike is last 4 or 5 movies). Overall a very good movie, but a tad disappointing. I give it a B. Would I watch again? - I think I would.

I was a TV news producer in Cleveland in those days and remember very well the day Danny Greene died. I was bothered a bit by setting that scene in an urban area rather than a suburb. And the writer and/or director took a lot of dramatic license by having the kids in the parking lot at the time. But I liked his giving the boy his cross...almost as if he knew his time was up. I knew both of the local news reporters who were featured, including Brian Ross, now head of ABC TV' investigative unit. They producers did a good job in rounding up old news film and tape of Cleveland police cars and ambulances of that era. But I was bothered by the fact that when trash cans were needed, all they had were bright and shiny ones...they should have been painted a dirty gray, since that's the color they become in a couple of months. All in all, I give it a strong 7!

Really well done ! dug all the actors --Ray Stevenson did terrific job -- also the rest of the cast was fun and quirky --- among the standouts are Chris Walken and Robert Davi any film would be worth seeing just for them-- even in small roles these guys bring so much and are more versatile that a lot of the stock in play stereotypes ---Danny Greene story was true!! and that adds a lot -- but could have deepened some of the characters -- instead of perfunctory water color --one of the differences between the Godfather and this film and should be a lesson to writers and directors --treat supporting characters with same detail as the lead-- Tony LoBianco another Stand out

America loves the tough guy. The guy who faces the impossible odds and beats them to a bloody pulp. Examples - Rocky, Dirty Harry or Dalton ("Road House"). America also loves the bad guy. The guy that we really shouldn't support but we do anyhow. Examples - The Godfather, Scarface and Henry Hill ("Goodfellas"). In "Kill the Irishman" we are now given a new underdog, bad guy to cheer for, Danny Greene (played by Ray Stevenson). All-American tough guy. In Jonathan Hensleigh's latest movie based on Danny Greene's life in the 1970s, we see the tough guy who works his way up from the docks in Cleveland, Ohio. Greene has it rough from the beginning, an orphan raised on Cleveland's mean streets. He takes a job on the docks shoveling grain and is soon given the opportunity to become a union leader because he is one of the only guys that reads books. So, he is also a tough guy with some intellect. He literally fights his way into his position of Union Boss. From there he leads a corrupt life assisting the local Italian mafia in robbing the docks where he works. Does this sound like any kind of movie hero? Why are we intrigued to continue watching? Maybe it's because some of us (mainly us guys) secretly want to be Greene. The guy that doesn't take nonsense from anyone. If someone gets in your way, break his jaw, beat him down and don't worry about consequences. Things are going well for Greene until his arrest; his bad deeds finally catch up to him. He cuts a deal with the FBI to become an informant and is back home with his wife and kids. He now needs to find work. He soon becomes a debt collector for Shondor Birns (played by Christopher Walken). Although Greene is Irish and Birns is Italian they don't let that stand in the way of their friendship, especially since there is money to be made. Again things are going well for Greene, he patrols Cleveland with his crew collecting past due balances for the mafia. Being a tough guy he usually lets his fist or hand gun do the talking. Things soon go south for Greene and Birns due to a lost $70,000. Immediately there is a price on Greene's head. In 1976 there were 36 explosions that rocked Cleveland therefore dubbing it as Bomb City, USA. This is all due in part to the Italian mob trying to kill the Irishman, Greene. He dodges bullets like Superman and survives explosions like John McClain ("Die Hard") then walks away with an indifferent attitude. How does he survive all of these assassination attempts? He is an Irish Catholic with the grace of God. Greene doesn't show fear; he keeps himself believing his intent is to be a modern day Robin Hood for the community. Even after losing his children and wife, he sticks it out because tough guys never give up. Especially Irish Catholic tough guys. Should you see this movie? Sure, if you like tough guys and if you like cheering for the bad guy. Greene's take-no-guff attitude kept his character interesting when the story seemed to lag or when there weren't any cars blowing up. He is supported by a cast of strong veterans, Val Kilmer, Vincent D'Onofrio and Paul Sorvino. The film also has an authentic documentary feel to it since Hensleigh incorporates actual footage from newscasts covering Greene's life as a local legend.

I was surprised at how this was a really well told story. It was made in 2011, but took place in the mid 70s. It is the story of Danny Greene an Irish mobster who would not sell out to the Italian mafia as they fought over turf in Cleveland. And the Director, Jonathan Hensleigh did a great job on the direction and script. Too many who knew him, Danny had a 'good' side and a bad side and it was represented in the movie. Danny served Turkeys at holidays, saved an old lady from an explosion, yet easily planted a bomb to eliminate adversaries. Jonathan told the story in 70's film language which has a lot of natural lighting, some hand held camera, realistic scenes, and sort of a cinema-verite feel to the movie. This made the film seem like a documentary but without the ponderous narrator and constant talking heads. Hensleigh told the story with action and character. The lighting, film stock, and camera work was reminiscent of The French Connection, a gritty 70's film. Ray Stevenson was almost a look alike for the real Danny Greene and added to the realism of the story. Even the fights were very realistic. There was no whack, thwack of a bamboo rod on leather as is typically overdone in movies. Those fights are a realism unmatched in cinema. a) they did not go on forever, with high kicks and constant up and down moments for the hero. b) sound of fist heating a chin was very real. Fights aren't an array of sound effects. c) most real fights end pretty quickly as in the movie, a few punches and the guy is down and you beat him up, he doesn't keep popping up like a whack a mole after being knocked out. Thank goodness the fights didn't go on forever with 'artsy' camera angles. The feel of this movie was gritty, and matched the grittiness of the story and labor (garbage and longshoreman activities) and you didn't feel the supporting cast was acting but that you were watching a mafia spy cam on their activities. See the extra features and the movie is pretty much the real story. The supporting cast of name actors had them nicely blended into the background and not upstaging the main character. Nicely done. I liked the incorporated newsreel footage, and forgot about all those explosions in the 70s in Cleveland. Funny how bombs are the "weapon"of choice for criminal types. Thank goodness Scorsese did not direct this movie as it would have been over lit and much more hyped up and with those whack fist effects and other posed scenes. And people died in these explosions, they didn't run ahead of them like Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford to "beat" the blast. If want to learn about the historic story of mobster vs. mobster in the 70s and an icon of resistance...this is the movie.

Designed to be an authentic gangster flick in the vein of Scorcese classics we all know and love, 'Kill The Irishman' aimed high but missed by a distance due to some poor choices in fundamental areas. I wont recite the plot for you, you can read that above if you want to. The aim of this review is to highlight 3 reasons why lovers of gangster films like myself, will find this one lacking: 1. The main character, Danny Greene aka The Irishman. The central character pulls the audience in and holds the story together. Why cast someone incapable and completely devoid of any emotion? Every single scene Ray Stevenson appears to have turned up to read some lines, then left with his paycheck. If I'm not emotionally invested in the character the movie centres around, every scene, not matter how well it's shot, will only ever be eye candy at best. There was clearly budget for some real talent, since the supporting roles made this watchable. Why not invest it in the right place? 2. The hook. (spoiler alert) The scene which pulls the audience in is a car bomb which Greene survives. This is a key scene right at the beginning, why cut corners and super impose fire on a car that clearly isn't burning? It cheapens the scene and insults the audience. This was repeated on other scenes later in the movie although there were some well done genuine explosions towards the end so it defies logic why the key scene was so poorly handled. 3. The script. It wasn't awful but everyone pretty much just said what they were expected to say at any given time. There were no quirky characters, everyone was either a generic gangster or a generic civilian. Great characters in a gangster movies; Joe Pesci's characters in both Goodfellas and Casino, Ray Liotta's character in Goodfellas. Every gangster in this movie could just as easily been listed as 'Gangster no. X'. Cookie cutter. This extends to how the story unfolds too. When a key character is uncharacteristically happy and the background music is the same, it's blatantly obvious he/she is about to meet their end. Cookie cutter, meets but does not exceed expectation. The sets, wardrobe and cinematography were great so if sight is the only sense available to you, you'll rate this flick highly (the only explanation I can give for the current 7.1 stars it has on IMDb). Overall this flick could've been great had the fundamentals been right. As it stands, it's a swing and a miss.

I had a chance to catch this at the Sunshine Theater on East Houston in NYC. I was looking forward to seeing this movie after reading about it a few months ago, and luckily found a theater that was actually screening it. I initially heard of Danny Green from the Mobsters series on BIO Channel, so I already knew the background story, and overall this movie keeps things pretty real in that regard(with some dramatics added here and there for the sake of entertainment). Overall I was slightly disappointed as parts of the movie and the dialog was too "Hollywoody". Casting Christopher Walken for example, he's become such a fixture of humor because of the way he talks, so when he talks in this movie about serious subjects, its still funny. Plus the meetings and interactions(especially amongst the Italian characters) was so typical it seemed like a 18 year old wrote the script after watching a few episodes of the Sopranos. The special effects seemed very low budget on the car bombing sequences, you can totally see a green screen poorly camouflaged into the some of the shots. That being said it is a good movie, just not a classic like Goodfellas, The Godfather, or even something one tier lower like Casino or The Departed. Ray Stevenson is awesome and is able to carry the movie past some of the shortcomings I mentioned, but with the talented names in the cast and the storyline they had to work with, it could have been so much better.

I went in really wanting to like this flick and boy was I utterly disappointed. Not like angry, I got ripped off, wasted my time kind of disappointment but more of a why did they even bother going through the trouble of making this movie to begin with kind of disappointment. It is so full of unbelievable film and story clichés it's astounding (And at some points kinda embarrassing). There is no attempt in any way to take something that on paper would appear to anyone as being a pretty typical mob/gangster story and create a film narrative that can come across as something other than a typical mob/gangster story. I think the worse thing the production does is start a story that is so obviously taking a page from Goodfellas and then proceed to deliberately hire half the cast from the same movie. Painfully obvious. Did it even occur to anyone during pre-production that there were more than a few sequences that seem rather... similar? (Which, speaking of Goodfellas cast members, note to Tony Darrow: The worst thing a character actor can do is get plastic surgery. On his face. See Dan Hedaya.) The other thing is the movie. It's supposed to be a MOVIE, as in, you know, moving motion pictures. This thing has such a glacial pace I wanted to start clubbing baby seals to relieve the boredom.. And what was up with Ray Stevenson's hair? It's like a mutant grafting of Gene Wilder on a six day coke binge and John Belushi with six days of sobriety. Almost all the actors in this either looked like older impersonators of themselves or bloated, inflatable pool toys. And I kept waiting for the alien to pop out of Vincent D'Onofrio's host carcass but then I remembered that was another movie back when he wasn't simply working to support his restaurant tabs. Which, apparently, are extensive. And poor Robert Davi-- we don't even get that good a glimpse of him in the whole movie. And he was a Bond villain for heaven's sake! It's not right. I'm just sayin'. And yeah, yeah, I know, it was supposed to be a device to make his character seem 'mysterious' and 'dangerously ubiquitous' but it just came off as if the actor wasn't showing up on time and they had his stand-in complete all his scenes in a pinch. Then at some point, some wiseguy editor managed to sneak in an extra reel of people sitting in their cars and then blowing them up over and over again on a loop that seemed to last for about 45 minutes. Then more things blew up. And then somebody said something or did something which all inevitably lead to a huge cue we all expected anyway that came lumbering up main street like the mother of all Godzillas... and then some kids came and more people blew up again. Next time I think I'll just watch Goodfellas.

'KILL THE IRISHMAN': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five) Another organized crime biopic, this one focuses on the infamous 70's union rep turned gangster Danny Greene. The film stars B movie tough guy (and notable character thug) Ray Stevenson as Greene. It was written (with co-writer Jeremy Walters) and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh and adapted from the book 'To Kill The Irishman' by Rick Porrello. Hensleigh is most well known for writing and co-writing such blockbuster action films as 'DIE HARD: WITH A VENGEANCE' and 'ARMAGEDON'. He also directed the films 'WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE' and 'THE PUNISHER' (which it's sequel, 'PUNISHER: WAR ZONE', starred Stevenson). The film co-stars the likes of Vincent D'Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, Linda Cardellini, Vinnie Jones, Robert Davi, Paul Sorvino and other well known character actors. It's a little clichéd and by the numbers (it's certainly nothing we haven't seen before in the gangster crime genre) but it is entertaining and interesting to a certain extent, more so than a lot of others in my opinion. Danny Greene was a well known Irish gangster in Cleveland in the 1970's. He started his career in organized crime working as a longshoreman labor union representative until he was busted. He was released in an arrangement that he would turn over any information and evidence he uncovered, in his future crime dealings, to the police (which he did very little of). He was eventually loved and admired by the public (as sort of a modern day Robin Hood) and hated by his criminal rivals. He became famously hard to kill as he continued to miraculously survive many attempts on his life. The film focuses on his relationships with fellow criminal businessmen, including John Nardi (D'Onofrio) and Shondor Birns (Walken), as well as his family, other love interests (Laura Ramsey) and a local cop (Kilmer) he knew since he was a kid. I'm not a big fan of biopics or mobster films like this. I admire the film craftsmanship of popular crime films like 'THE GODFATHER' and 'GOODFELLAS' but they're far from my favorite films. I don't especially like the element that the viewer is left with no one to root for and all of the lead characters are pretty morally despicable (although organized criminals probably have a lot higher standards and respectable moral qualities than most other successful businessman). With that said the film is more fascinating and entertaining than most others of it's type. The actors are all good and well cast, especially Stevenson. He's always been a cool action bad ass in films before but here he's really given a chance to show off his acting abilities and range. His performance combined with Hensleigh's better than average directing make the film one definitely worth checking out. Probably especially if you're a fan of the genre.