I’ve no idea what it is they’re putting in the water over there these days, but the west coast of Ireland, if what we’re seeing on screen is to be believed, is going to hell in a hand-basket. RTE’s acclaimed TV series about a lone rural cop, ‘Single-Handed’, recently had its fourth run; Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS was adapted as ‘Jack Taylor’, starring Iain Glen; now comes ‘The Guard’, which this week opened the Sundance Festival World Dramatic Competition. To wit:
‘The Guard’ is a thriller-comedy set on the west coast of Ireland where Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is a small-town cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humour, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to his door.
The film is written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, brother to playwright and film director Martin McDonagh (‘The Lonesome West’ et al, ‘In Bruges’), who doubles up here, along with Don Cheadle, as executive producer. The big attraction for me here is Brendan Gleeson, though, an immensely likeable and always watchable actor, and by all accounts a thoroughly nice bloke to boot. Variety likes him too, with the gist of its Sundance review running thusly:
“… it’s Gleeson who rightly owns the screen as a beer-swilling, crotch-grabbing, Derringer-firing crusader with one hell of a filthy mouth to go along with his heart of gold,” while the director John Michael McDonagh’s “filmmaking crackles with energy.”
According to Element Pictures, the movie will be getting a summer release here in Ireland. Should be a cracker.
If he scoops the Big One on April 29th, Declan Hughes (right) will be forever known in these here parts as Mr Ed. For lo! It has come to pass, and not a moment too soon, that the Venerable Other Declan has been nominated for an Edgar in the Best Novel category, for last year’s Ed Loy tale, THE PRICE OF BLOOD (aka THE DYING BREED). Naturally, being a work-shy slug-a-bed, I haven’t read any of the other novels nominated, but I have read THE PRICE OF BLOOD and it’ll be a fine, fine novel indeed that pips it at the post by a short head (the novel deals in part with the murky world of Irish horse-racing, see). Dec was kind enough to ring yours truly yesterday afternoon with the hot-off-the-presses news, to give me the scoop, but unfortunately I was here all day yesterday, and not so concerned with books and stuff. Thankfully, Lilyput is on the mend and coming back to herself again, and thanks to everyone who has been in touch offering their best wishes. Elsewhere in the Edgars, Siobhan Dowd’s BOG CHILD has been nominated in the Juvenile section, while Martin McDonagh has been nominated for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, for In Bruges. Incidentally, Dec Hughes’ fourth Ed Loy offering, ALL THE DEAD VOICES, will be released in June. Quoth Dec:
Ed Loy is hired by the beautiful Anne Fogarty to find the man who killed her father fifteen years ago: it could be a gangland IRA boss, it could be a property developer with Sinn Fein and government connections, it could be semi-reformed gangster George Halligan. Plunged into a murky world of post-peace process evasions and half-truths where no-one is who he appears to be, Loy eventually finds himself digging his own grave on a deserted farm in the dead of night, his options dwindled to nothing more than the fight for mere survival.
It boasts an Irish writer-director in Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh and Irish talent in the form of Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, but it’s a Belgian setting and it’s funded by British moolah – is it strictly correct to call IN BRUGES an Irish crime caper movie? On the basis that we never ask where the wonga is coming from to fund the various Irish writers out there, we’ll say a tentative yes, and give IN BRUGES (jump here for the trailer) the traditional ‘four thumbs aloft’ verdict (above, right). Gleeson and Farrell play a pair of odd couple London-based hitmen ordered to Bruges after a botched hit, during which Farrell’s character accidentally kills a young boy, there to await further instructions from their boss, played by Ralph Fiennes. Lob in an art-house Dutch flick filming dwarves, a drug-dealing femme fatale and a jealous boyfriend, and you have the basis for a knowing romp that isn’t afraid to turn dark and twisted. The finale is a little too neatly tied up, and the convenient coincidences come thick and fast, but there are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, a breakneck pace, a superb performance from Gleeson, a beautiful setting expertly captured by cinematographer Eigil Bryld, and some cracking dialogue (“Retract that bit about my cunt fucking kids!”). Oh, and it also has Townes Van Zandt’s St. John the Gambler on the soundtrack. It wowed ’em at Sundance, and it’ll very probably thrill you too. Wanna see Bren & Col on the red carpet? Roll it there, Collette …
Being our slightly jaundiced look back over the Irish crime fiction week that was, to wit: Arlene Hunt’s MISSING PRESUMED DEAD got its paperback release and pole-vaulted into the bestseller list, prompting in no little amount of gadzooking around at chez Hunt: “While sitting here at my desk earlier, chewing the end of a biro to ribbons and pondering the imponderable, namely how in the name of shark-jumping I was going to get John out of the scrape I’d just written him into, my telephone rang. Wearily, blearily, none too cheerily, I got up and went to throttle the offending racket. But gadzooks! Stall the ball! Hold yer horses. For it was news, good news, the sort of news Tuesdays never bring forth. MISSING PRESUMED DEAD is number five in the bestsellers list in Ireland!” Yaaaay! … Meanwhile, no one bothered to tell us that Darren Shan, prodigious and bestselling YA author, is shooting for the adult market when PROCESSION OF THE DEAD is released on February 25 … Ditto for THE INSIDER: THE PRISON DIARIES OF EAMONN BOYCE, which was published by Lilliput back in November. Like, was it something we said, people? Happily, the ever-lovely folk at Hodder Headline Ireland saw fit to pop a copy of Stephen Leather’s latest, DEAD MEN, in the post. It hits the shelves on January 24 … Marshal Zeringue was kind enough to wrassle our humble offering THE BIG O to the ground and Page 99 it until it uncled … Irish Independent columnist Kevin Myers (right) took a pop at gun crime and the Irish political classes, the gist of the piece running thusly: “For we have criminal gun crime for the same reasons that IRA gun crime went on for so long: because our political classes have not been shot, and are too morally inert to have taken the necessary action to have crushed either terrorist or criminal. But just one gangland killing, just one, among the precious 4 and 6 brigade, and by God, policing priorities would soon change. Until then, our political establishment will not really care what happens in working-class housing estates. If it really did, Garda Commissioner Murphy’s head would be on a stake outside Dublin Castle for even daring to promise a mere 2pc drop in crime in exchange for an 11pc increase in resources. Instead, his bonce is still on his shoulders, and the outcry from TDs over the ploddish modesty of his ambitions could have been completely drowned out by the din of tadpoles darning their socks.” Yep, those blummin’ tadpoles, darning while Rome burns … Finally, here’s Oscar-winning director Martin McDonagh introducing the trailer for the upcoming IN BRUGES, which stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes in which looks a lot like an Irish take on an Elmore Leonard-style caper flick. “If I’d grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t, soooo … it doesn’t.” Maybe not, but the movie impressed Clint at Ain't It Cool News. Roll it there, Collette …
Crikey! Turn your back on Technicolour Talkies of Hibernia for two seconds and all hell breaks loose. First off, the trailer for In Bruges has finally arrived, and the good news is that it looks the dog’s. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, all let loose on the unsuspecting populace of Bruges in a hilarious, dark caper movie about two hapless hitmen on the loose … truly our cup runneth over. Elsewhere on TToH, Gavin Burke – for lo! It is he! – tips us off that director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In The Name of the Father) is making a crime flick, Emerald City, based on the Irish mob of Hell’s Kitchen. Looks like the Irish crime flick is finally coming of age, people. Anyhoo, here’s the trailer for In Bruges – and we’re loving the tagline: ‘Shoot first, sightsee later’ …
The Unquiet Man, aka Gavin Burke of Technicolour Talkies of Hibernia, reports that IN BRUGES is to open the Sundance Film Festival on January 17. Directed by Martin McDonagh, who won an Oscar in 2006 for his short SIX-SHOOTER, the movie features a pair of hapless hitmen – Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, right – on sabbatical in the Belgian capital after a hit becomes a miss. Despite the relatively tiny budget of €1m, TToH reports, IN BRUGES also managed to shoehorn one Ralph Fiennes into the cast – and while there’s no trailer available yet, TToH is featuring some handheld footage shot by a bystander while Fiennes was going through his paces. “In the background,” says the Unquiet Man, “and with the right kind of eyes, you can just make out Bigfoot.” Erm – you’re definite that’s not Brendan Gleeson, right?
Actually, the exterior shooting on In Bruges wrapped way back in March, and right now they're wrangling over interiors, editing, who gets snapped falling out of the pub looking like a refugee from Knackeragua, etc. - our money (a bent three-shilling piece) is on Col Farrell, naturally, pictured left after an Homeric night's work spent grappling with the ketchup bottle. The movie, which also stars Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson, is the largest production ever to hit Belgium, according to Focus Features, who've obviously never heard of the Blitzkrieg. Ah well ... the movie, directed by Martin McDonagh, isn't due until 2008, but you can jump over here for regular news updates.
I’ve no idea what it is they’re putting in the water over there these days, but the west coast of Ireland, if what we’re seeing on screen is to be believed, is going to hell in a hand-basket. RTE’s acclaimed TV series about a lone rural cop, ‘Single-Handed’, recently had its fourth run; Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS was adapted as ‘Jack Taylor’, starring Iain Glen; now comes ‘The Guard’, which this week opened the Sundance Festival World Dramatic Competition. To wit: 
