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 REVIEW Gangster Rap Director John Boorman paints an unapologetically heroic portrait of the famed Irish gangster Martin Cahill in The General.
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The General Rated R Opens Friday, March 12 British-born filmmaker John Boorman is no stranger to rugged individualism. The producer's best and most complex films are fueled by a pioneering spirit of self-reliance with a heavy dose of complicated duplicity. In films like Point Blank, Hell in the Pacific, Deliverance and Hope and Glory, Boorman endorsed the ways of the non-conformist rapscallion, and revealed both the precariousness and capacity for hypocrisy that are a part of such lifestyles. His newest film, The General, is no exception. In his depiction of the real-life Dublin gangster Martin Cahill--a clever thug who entertained and angered Ireland with his sometimes violent, always-cheeky 1980s heists--Boorman creates a cross between Clyde Barrow, Jimmy Cagney and Robin Hood. In both structure and spirit, Boorman builds a modern-day version of the 1930s Warner Brothers gangster pictures (a genre ruled, brilliantly, by Cagney), and he gleefully gives us what old-school gangster epics had to subvert within the moral constraints of the film industry's Hayes Code--a non-moralistic depiction of crime. Though the picture does show a few cracks in its hero's armor and presents one smart, likable member of the police force (Ned Kenny, played with a perfect Irish accent by John Voight) it is, for the most part, an unapologetic celebration of anti-establishment anarchism. Like Howard Hawks' Scarface and William Wellman's Public Enemy, Boorman's General is flawed, but still a gangster superstar. Brendan Gleeson (the best thing about Mel Gibson's Braveheart) plays Cahill, a professional criminal known as the General. Brought up on an "estate" (a housing project) in working-class Dublin, the young Cahill (the too-brief part is played by The Butcher Boy's Eammon Owens) has thumbed his nose at authority most of his life. The British, the cops and the church (a priest in one scene tries to diddle him and the young Cahill promptly punches him in the face) have fed his anti-authoritarian bravado, his charismatic Robin Hood loyalty to the working class and his life of crime. From the institutions set to tame him emerges a master criminal who, along with his gang, successfully burglarizes everything from cheap arcades to rich people's estates, even stealing a private collection of art masterworks. Yet, despite his traditionally underground activities, Cahill embraces attention, going so far to ham up his criminality, which serves to embarrass the Irish police. He also makes enemies with both the IRA and the loyalists, and enjoys a country full of sheepish fans--director Boorman included. Cahill was a dedicated father who didn't drink or smoke, and like Terry Molloy in On The Waterfront, he raised pigeons as a calming hobby. But he wasn't your typical family man. With rebellious aplomb, he lived in a ménage à trois with his wife and her sister, and fathered children with both women. He was a loyal friend who treated his underlings well, but this pudgy, white-trash teddy bear who fancied T-shirts with pigs on them was also a brutal foe if crossed. In short, he was a bucket full of contradictions whose life was tailor-made for the big screen. And to the big screen his story beautifully goes, thanks to wonderful black-and-white cinematography, a buoyant screenplay and perfect casting. Shot by Seamus Deasy in wide-screen color transferred to black-and-white, The General has a lovely, almost wistful, old-movie feel, but suffers from an unflattering flatness as well. Boorman's canvas, which keeps our eyes from the damning and glamorizing use of color, is neither warm nor nihilistic. In the tradition of 1930s gangster pictures, in which the films were mostly social studies, Boorman takes on the wide-open socio-political realm of corrupt Irish institutions and the crooked mean streets of Dublin. What keeps the film personal is Gleeson's performance as the pugnacious Cahill. Gleeson excellently steps up to the challenge of making a character who could be easily construed as "bad" and makes him both tender and brutal. Infusing the film with the rapid-fire wit and energy of Cagney in his best gangster pictures, we can't help but be charmed by his cheeriness. Like Cagney's Rocky in Angels with Dirty Faces, who could charm the pants off a frigid grandma, we love Cahill. And like the Dead End Kids who worshipped Rocky, we too worship Cahill for sticking it to the Man with such wily audacity. It is a bravura performance that has been criticized for being off-putting and even removed, but this is to the film's benefit. Neither Boorman nor Gleeson deign to really know the true Cahill (who despite his public piss-offs to the police was usually seen with his hands covering his face) which lends this film its simultaneous glamour and mystery. In the end we think we know the General. But do we?
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