Tag: Irish

NOWHERE SPECIAL – Review

(L_R) Daniel Lamont and James Norton in director Uberto Pasolini’s NOWHERE SPECIAL. Courtesy of Cohen Media

James Norton plays an Irish single father of a 4-year-old boy in director Uberto Pasolini’s touching, bittersweet drama about a loving parent trying to do the right thing for his son.

James Norton plays an Irish single father of a 4-year-old boy in this touching drama about a loving parent trying to do the right thing for his son while he still has time. Directed by Uberto Pasolini, this Ireland-set family drama has delightful, wholly believable, even funny scenes between father and son, a sweet but independent-minded four-year-old, scenes which will bring a smile of recognition from parents. The other side of this tale is more bittersweet, because of what the father is trying to do: find the right new family and home for his son, before his terminal cancer robs him of that ability. The charm of those warm, funny everyday moments between father and son, and the remarkable chemistry between James Norton and young Daniel Lamont as four-year-old Michael, are the keys to why this film is perfectly balanced, between the sweet appeal of those father and son moments and the heartbreak of the situation the father is in, in this impressively-acted, moving, bittersweet tale.

Inspired by a true story, director Uberto Pasolini handles all this with great skill. This whole story takes place in an ordinary modest world of a low-income working man, and we see him deal with ordinary difficulties of life, like car breakdowns, preschool issues, working enough to affording groceries and the bills, even as his health fades. It is a dramatic story but Pasolini tells it is a way that avoids melodrama or sentimentality. Keeping it grounded and subtle makes it far more affecting, particularly with Norton’s fine performance, and the film’s wonderful father-son connection.

John (James Norton) is a self-employed window washer who is a single parent to his son Michael (Daniel Lamont). Mom is not in the picture, having been overwhelmed with parenthood after their partying pre-child lifestyle, and she left shortly after Michael’s birth to return to her family in Russia. Faced with parenthood on his own, dad stepped up, changed his life and became the responsible parent his son needed. Now at 35, John has built a stable, happy life for his son. His cancer diagnosis came as a shock, but even more so when he was given only a few months to live. John is now determined to use those remaining months to find the perfect new home for his son, while concealing what is happening to his health.

Often in real life, we see this parenting situation go the other way, with dads bolting and moms stepping up to be the responsible parent. It is one of several things that makes this quiet little family drama so good and so unusual. Another are the fine performances, and the realistic, down-to-earth way the story is told. Those charming father and son scenes help us cope with the father’s hard circumstances and choices, and give the film a little lightness and even touches of humor through Michael’s childish antics.

The father works with a social worker and a placement agency to find the one family who is right for his son, while trying to keep everything in Michael’s life as normal and steady as possible. It is not always easy, coping with all the usual challenges of life and parenthood, while struggling to keep working to pay their bills despite failing health, and still continuing his quest to find the perfect new home for Michael. The film alternates between those wonderful scenes with dad and son, and dad going about his work as a window washer, coping with ordinary life, and his meetings with the social workers helping him find the right home for the little boy. From time to time, the father and son visit homes of prospective parents, some of whom seem good candidates and some that don’t.

Something that will seem surprising to American audiences is how much help this single father gets from the social agencies and the time the caring social workers spend with him, as well as the lengths they will go to in helping him find the best home for his son. It is a portrait of a completely different, much more functional system than typical in this country.

That alternating pattern of scenes with just father and son and scenes of the father’s work and search, give us a needed emotional break from the difficulties the father faces. Every scene is presented in a realistic way, free of over-blown emotion, just quiet but touching moments in which the actors weave their magic. The photography is likewise subtle, unobtrusive but effective, giving everything an appealing naturalness.

Despite the ticking clock of his diagnosis, the father is remarkable picky about the family he will accept. He is looking for a magic combination of parents who will understand his son and those whose home has the right warmth and stability. Some of the homes he visits seem so good – well-off parents that can offer his son an education and future John never could and in a large home in a beautiful, semi-rural setting – that you wonder why he is still searching. But something isn’t quite right, so the search goes on. Some parents are more working-class like John, others more financially well-off and upper-class. Some have other children, others looking to adopt a first child. Some families are warm, others relaxed, others more strict. There are suburban ones, city ones; some down-to-earth, and some that look wonderful at first but reveal their darker side when he visits. Still he hesitates.

At first, John is certain about the kind of family he is searching for but as he meets them, he becomes less certain of whether he can judge them on a brief meeting and whether he knows his son well enough to make this decision for him, one that will impact his whole childhood. We eventually learn a but more about the dad’s own family history to give us insight on why he is working so hard to find the perfect home. Dad also is determined to conceal his illness from his son, who he thinks is too young to understand. John hopes to move him to another loving home before that illness becomes too obvious. That is a lot of pressure on this hard-working, loving, single parent.

James Norton is remarkable in this role, expressing the emotional complexity of the father’s feelings in a nuanced, layered performance. The scenes with the boy are magical, so filled with a perfect mix of lightness and real life, that we almost forget what is going on with the dad, a perfect escape for us as well as the father. Young Daniel Lamont is impressive as the boy, and was actually four-years-old at the time. He has a strong on-screen presence, even at times bringing to mind Jackie Coogan in Chaplin’s THE KID. Lamont speaks few words but his expressive face and eyes do it all, engaging with Norton and conveying a curious child who seems to know his own mind despite his young age. Norton does a marvelous job with the young actor, and he also effectively lets us see how the father’s joy in those moments with his on propel him forward as he deals with his increasingly life. As John races time to find the right home, that perfect fit, Norton also portrays him coming to grips with his own mortality, in between hard work as a window cleaner, dealing with difficult customers, school issues and ordinary life.

NOWHERE SPECIAL is remarkable, touching film, a quiet little drama that is hard to forget, and which finds a perfect balance between the warmth and often playful appeal of the father and son scenes, and the heartbreak of the father’s situation and his daunting task of finding the perfect new home for his son. The film’s low key approach lets the actors’ performances shine through, making this a much more moving film than something heavy on sentimentality would have been.

NOWHERE SPECIAL opens May 10, 2024 in theaters.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

BELFAST – Review

(L to R) Jamie Dornan as “Pa”, Ciarán Hinds as “Pop”, Jude Hill as “Buddy”, and Judi Dench as “Granny” in director Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST, a Focus Features release. Credit : Rob Youngson / Focus Features

Kenneth Branagh gives us one of his best films, and his most personal, with BELFAST, a partly autobiographical tale of a boy in North Belfast in 1969. It is more a year-in-the-life story rather than a coming-of-age one but it is a pivotal year in many ways.

Mostly, BELFAST is a child-centric comedy but it does take place in the shadow of the Irish “Troubles.” Branagh both wrote and directs BELFAST, which is filled with distinctive Irish humor, biting quick-witted wordplay and colorful characters, along with childhood memories of a working class neighborhood where everyone knows everyone. This 1969 tale is mostly both funny and warm, happening against the wonder of men walking on the Moon, but while thoughts of the Irish Troubles dog the parents and danger sometimes looms, viewers need not worry about graphic violence in this film.

BELFAST opens with 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) and his friends playing in an alley, having mock battles with wooden swords and trash can lids as shields. As Buddy’s mother (Catriona Balfe) is calling him in for dinner, an angry mob shows up at the end of their street. A driver-less car is rolled on to the street and blows up. With that car bomb, children’s mock battles give way to the real battle of the Irish Troubles.

Buddy’s family is Protestant, as are most of his neighbors, but a few Catholics have moved in too, and it is the Catholics the radical mob was hunting. But the tight-knit neighborhood is not having it, and everyone pitches into to build a barrier at the end of the street to keep out the mob, tearing up the paving stones on the sidewalk to build it.

Buddy’s parents grew up here, and he is surrounded by family and friends in this street of row houses and little shops. Buddy is particularly close to his charming, talkative grandfather Pop (Ciaran Hinds), and his no-nonsense Granny (Judi Dench), who is quick to call out her husband’s more outrageous yarns. Buddy’s father, Pa (Jamie Dornan), often is gone for a week at a time as he works in construction in England, leaving Ma to watch over the 9-year-old and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie).

Shot mostly in gorgeous black and white, the film follows Buddy’s adventures, his crush on a blonde-haired girl in his class, being goaded into shoplifting candy, working on an assignment about the Moon landing and other childhood adventures. The family watch Westerns on TV, go to the movies and the theater, where we get little flashes of color. While Buddy’s world revolves around childhood concerns, his parents try to shield their sons from the dangers of the Troubles, often led by a local radical that Buddy’s father calls a “jumped-up gangster.” It doesn’t always work, and the worried father wants to leave Ireland, but his wife resists leaving the only place she has ever known.

The acting is excellent, starting with young Jude Hill as the stand-in for a young Branagh. The scenes with him, Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench as the grandparents are among the best, funny and touching. Catriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan as the parents are both passionate and fiery. The kid-centric scenes are pure delight, with the brothers and cousins engaging in a series of misadventures that are sure to bring a smile, but there are times when we see the danger of the upheaval going on around them, when it intrudes on their child’s world.

The film is impressive visually, with a mix of beautiful black and white images, occasionally interrupted with startling dashes of color. There are creative camera angles and some lovely gasp-inducing shot compositions. Time and again, an emotionally-pivotal scene is further enhanced by artistic framing, striking enough to make you note the beauty of the shot, but also adding to scene’s dramatic impact. The pacing and editing are perfect, stylishly supporting and advancing the story. The music is striking, using some pop tunes of the era – often by Van Morrison – along with selected Western movie music, some of which is both comic and spot-on dramatically, in a weird way.

This is an impressive film, working both as cinematic art and movie entertainment, powerful dramatically while warm, funny and sentimental in its childhood remembrances. BELFAST is sure to be a crowd-pleaser and an award-contender.

BELFAST opens in theaters on Nov. 12.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

THE KITCHEN – Review

(L-R) ELISABETH MOSS as Claire, TIFFANY HADDISH as Ruby and MELISSA McCARTHY as Kathy in New Line Cinema’s mob drama “The Kitchen,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa. © 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC

You’ll want to stay out of THE KITCHEN, not due to the heat but because of the stink. THE KITCHEN had all the right ingredients for a good crime thriller: a cast including Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elizabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson, Margo Martindale, and Common, a setting in the 1970s in New York’s gritty Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, and a femme-centric crime thriller premise about the wives of criminals taking to crime themselves when their husbands are no longer there to provide financial support. Yet is takes all that and turns it into a true stinker.

THE KITCHEN is based on a DC comic but the premise sounds rather like the top-notch 2018 neo-noir WIDOWS, which was inspired by a hit British TV show. Still, a good script could make that work.

If only THE KITCHEN had a good script, which it does not. Nor much sense at all. THE KITCHEN throws in every possible crime thriller cliche as well as bits and pieces from other films. The result is a big stinky mess, like a days-old pile of dirty dishes left in the sink.

Of course, this is not the first film to waste a talented cast on a lousy script but it seems particularly egregious in this case, with a fine cast lead by gifted women. Andrea Berloff’s direction helps little but the heroic efforts of the actors are sometimes surprisingly effective in individual scenes. Still, those moments are not enough to rescue this film from its dreadfully nonsensical script. This film could have been so good, but sadly it’s not even close.

Kathy (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish) and Claire (Elizabeth Moss) are the passive wives of some low-level criminals who get caught during robbery, and are sentenced to prison. While their husbands are locked up, the Irish-American crime gang that Ruby’s husband Kevin (James Badge Dale) heads is supposed provide financial support, but that turns out to be meager. Maybe that is due to the low opinion Ruby’s crime boss mother-in-law Helen (Margo Martindale) holds of the three wives.

It’s the 1970s, so these women all start out as timid housewives. Melissa McCarthy’s character Kathy is a classic stay-at-home mom, who seems happy to just be supportive of her beloved husband Jimmy (Brian d’Arcy James). Her character has the best marriage in the trio, with Ruby under the thumb of her mother-in-law, who resents her for being African American instead of Irish-American. Elizabeth Moss’ Claire who is abused by her violent husband Rob (Jeremy Bobb). The cast is rounded out by Domhnall Gleeson as Gabriel, a one-time hit-man for the gang with a romantic thing for Claire, and Common as one of a team of FBI agents keeping tabs on the gang.

Not surprisingly, when these downtrodden women find themselves in dire financial straits, they decide to rebel against their expected roles – remember this is the ’70s – and take up crime themselves. They decide to take control of the gang, or at least take over the protection racket from the men in the gang.

This proves surprisingly easy to do, so much so that the audience might wonder if the film is going to go in a lighter, more comedic direction. Until the killing starts. Weirdly, these women who start out so timid in speaking up to men or challenging their male authority seem not at all squeamish about killing off anyone standing in their way, not just fellow criminals but ordinary citizens.

After they dismember a body in a bathtub, there is no going back to a lighter tone, yet THE KITCHEN seems to want to do just that, as if these women were just partners in a bakeshop or other legit business. McCarthy’s character even cites the “good they have done for the community” in one unsettling scene, as if all the killing escaped her attention. Besides the disconnect in tone – violent crime thriller alternating with romance and female buddy picture – the film is packed with crime movie cliches, idiotic dialog, nonsensical plot twists and inconsistent characters. The film just keeps digging the hole deeper, until it buries itself in derivative muck.

It is a shame to waste this wonderful cast on this mess of a movie. If only the filmmakers had decided to add a real script, they might have had something, instead of wasting the audience’s time and money.

RATING: 1 out of 4 stars

KILL THE IRISHMAN – The Review

KILL THE IRISHMAN is a film based on the true story of Danny Greene, a Cleveland man of humble origins and Irish ancestry. Greene never graduated high school, but had an abundance of both street smarts and intelligence, known for his impressive reputation for reading books. Greene was also a man who had both an intense, fundamental good nature matched only by his intimidating toughness and confidence. These traits would combine to mold the man into a legend on the streets of 1970’s Cleveland.

Written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, best known for 2004’s THE PUNISHER starring Thomas Jane, KILL THE IRISHMAN has another connection with the popular Marvel Comics vigilante in it’s star Ray Stevenson, who played the anti-hero Frank Castle in 2008’s PUNISHER: WAR ZONE… not written or directed by Hensleigh. Neither film pale in comparison to this slice of reality, based on recent history but spiced up subtly with street humor and a slight touch of classic gangster film flair.

Greene became known as a local hero for his charitable work and his sincere interest in the lives of the working class, but also as a dangerous and formidable wild card by the mafia and police. His story shifts between being a good guy and a bad guy, residing effortlessly in the gray area of the anti-hero, a role Stevenson seems quite adept at capturing. Many people are still relatively unfamiliar with Stevenson, whose work includes roles in THE BOOK OF ELI, THE OTHER GUYS and the upcoming THOR. What I found most intriguing about KILL THE IRISHMAN was Stevenson’s performance, an effort I would have no qualms with calling a galvanizing step towards becoming an actor of a higher caliber.

KILL THE IRISHMAN also benefits greatly from a truly impressive ensemble cast of talented, gangster film genre veterans. Vincent D’Onofrio (BROOKLYN’S FINEST) plays John Nardi, Greene’s friend, organized crime figure and one time employer. Christopher Walken (TRUE ROMANCE) has a short-lived but welcome role as loan shark Shondor Birns. Val Kilmer (HEAT) makes a big screen return as Detective Joe Manditski, but I feel his performance was dull and stiff, perhaps suffering from what felt like a distinct effort on his behalf to hide the weight he has gained. I say, you are who you are, so play off it… a la Marlon Brando in THE SCORE, or Orsen Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL.

As great as this cast is already, there’s still much more to offer the film fan well-versed in genre actors. KILL THE IRISHMAN seems at times like a gangster film genre class reunion, including Paul Sorvino (GOODFELLAS), Vinnie Jones (SNATCH), Robert Davi (LICENSE TO KILL), Mike Starr (GOODFELLAS), Steve Schirripa (THE SOPRANOS), Tony Darrow (THE SOPRANOS) and Fionnula Flanagan (TV series BROTHERHOOD, and LOST).

KILL THE IRISHMAN maintains a sense of the era, combining a touch of graininess in both image (shot by Karl Walter Lindenlaub) and sound with attention to detail in apparel, architecture and automobiles.The film also connects with the 70’s era through it’s sense of humor, especially in relation to violence and language, which tiptoe in and out of the grindhouse essence of 70’s cinema. It’s subtle, but it’s there and it adds an authentic texture to the film.

KILL THE IRISHMAN falls back comfortably upon a fairly standard but effective Irish-influenced score from Patrick Cassidy. The film, filled with little details that add to the viewer’s transportation to the 70’s, was based on Rick Porrello’s book “To Kill the Irishman” and ends with a bit a archival news footage of the real Danny Greene, much like THE FIGHTER ends with a moment with the real-life Micky and Dicky.

KILL THE IRISHMAN falls fittingly within the “stranger than fiction” category. Danny Greene survived multiple assassination attempts, conveying a fearlessness that is rarely seen outside of fictional characters. After all the explosions, violence, and graphically colorful language have passed, this is ultimately a film about one man’s struggle to find his place in a world that’s far from perfect. KILL THE IRISHMAN is a film about a man struggling with his own legacy. I suspect this film will help convey what kind of man Danny Greene was for a whole new generation.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars