Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

What would you do to a person that burglarised your home and took some of your treasured possessions? Famed British film maker John Boorman gave an unusual and quite interesting answer to that question. In 1998 said individual became the subject of his biopic The General.

The main character, played by Brendan Gleeson, is Martin “The General” Cahill, professional criminal specialised in burglaries and armed robberies and whose ability to escape justice was decades-long source of humiliation for Ireland’s law enforcement. The film begins in 1994 when Cahill’s luck finally runs out and he falls victim to assassination. The plot switches decades in the past and shows how Cahill grew up in poor neighbourhood of Dublin and was forced to steal in order to support himself. That brings him to reform school where he, thanks to paedophile priests, would attain life-long disdain towards Catholic Church, as well as other social institutions. After leaving the prison for the last times he forms the gang with his old neighbourhood friends Noel Curly (played by Adrian Dunbar) and Gary (played by Sean McGinley). Cahill is very good at his job and gets large sums of money with his criminal acts, but nevertheless goes to collect welfare payments every week only to make mockery of police and bureaucracy. He also openly defies Church and its teachings by living in ménage à trois with Frances (played by Maria Doyle Kennedy) and her sister Tina (played by Angeline Ball). Provisional IRA, on the other hand, doesn’t like that Cahill’s gang managed to rob seemingly secure jewelry store that even such powerful organisation could not. Ned Kenny (played by Jason Voight), police inspector who grew up in same neighbourhood as Cahill, desperately tries to talk him into abandoning the life of crime befre it's too late, but Cahill doesn’t listen to him. When Cahill’s gang steals collection of extremely valuable paintings by Vermeer, it turns out that the loot is too “hot” to be properly fenced. Cahill then does something incomprehensible for Irish Catholic during Northern Ireland Troubles and tries to make the deal with Ulster Protestant paramilitaries on the other side of border.

John Boorman, who lived in 1970s Ireland when his home there became target of Cahill and his gang, had previously built reputation with films like Point Blank and Deliverance, in which he employed “poetic” and “artsy” style. The General, however, is much more conventional. After the prologue, that tells audience what happened to main character, the narration technique is straightforward. The only peculiarity in this film is black-and-white cinematography by Seamus Deasy; Boorman later explained that most people portrayed in the film were alive and that black-and-white images would bring much needed distance between them and the events that otherwise might be traumatic. The General was, on the other hand, also had colour version which was distributed on home video and aired on television. Boorman also strove for authenticity and that included locations of events that occurred in real life. The General caused some controversy, mainly by Cahill’s victims and their families who claimed that the film glamourised what was nothing more than a street thug.

Some of those critics had valid point. Boorman’s film portrays Cahill as larger-than-life character whose open defiance of oppressive social institutions like police, bureaucracy and Church can’t fail to evoke sympathy among most of the viewers. However, much of that should be credited to Brendan Gleeson, Irish character actor who used one of the rare opportunities to play in starring role. Despite being overweight and balding and, as such, antithesis of typical Hollywood leading man, Gleeson succeeds in establishing himself as charismatic leader man and possessing charm that could not only seduce women but also convince large segments of society to see him as some kind of Robin Hood-like figure. Gleeson maintains the image of Cahill as mostly nice person even in scenes when the character does acts of threats, violence and torture.

Boorman, who also wrote the script, doesn’t succeed in directly establishing moral contradictions of Cahill’s characters. Instead, moral anchor is to be provided by character of Inspector Kenny, who unsuccessfully tries to be a voice of reason. Jason Voight, American actor who had worked with Boorman on Deliverance, does solid job and handles Irish accent in decent fashion. His character, although partially based on Jerry O’Connell, real life detective who served as technical advisor during production, looks a little bit too convenient and too artificial. Perhaps Boorman was too constrained by dark and violent events being too fresh in people’s memories while having to deal to limitations of relatively small country like Ireland. Despite those flaws, The General is still a well-acted and well- directed gangster biopic that represents one of the better examples of the genres. Its quality becomes even more apparent when compared by later films inspired by Cahill, like Ordinary Decent Criminal starring Kevin Spacey as Cahill-like protagonist.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)