Kill the Irishman


Kill the Irishman is a 2011 American biographical crime film directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, and starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Christopher Walken, and Val Kilmer. Written by Hensleigh and Jeremy Walters, it is based on the life of the Irish-American gangster Danny Greene, and was adapted from the book To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia by Rick Porrello.
Before entering production, Kill the Irishman had a troubled development stage that lasted over a decade. Production commenced in 2009, and filming took place in and around Detroit.
The film chronicles the rise and fall of Danny Greene. He worked as a longshoreman on the Cleveland docks, until being chosen to serve as interim president of the International Longshoremen's Association in 1961. In 1964, he was convicted of embezzling $11,500 of the union's funds. After his conviction, Greene rose through the criminal underworld in Cleveland and waged war on the Mafia for control of the city. After many failed attempts on Greene's life, he was assassinated on October 6, 1977 by contract killer Ray Ferritto. Greene's death ultimately led to the demise of the Cleveland Mafia.
Kill the Irishman was released in the United States on March 11, 2011 and premiered at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York City. Most of the cast, including Stevenson and D'Onofrio, were in attendance as was Shondor Birns' niece. The film received mixed reviews upon its release, with some reviewers criticizing the purported similarities to Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. Kill the Irishman grossed $1,188,194 at the domestic box office, against a production budget of $12 million.

Plot

In 1960 Danny Greene and his childhood friends Billy McComber and Art Sneperger are longshoremen at the Cleveland docks. The members are exploited by corrupt union boss Jerry Merke, and the leadership of the ILA union urges Greene to run against him. Sneperger cannot pay a gambling debt to Cleveland Mafia Capo John Nardi. In return for Sneperger's debt being forgiven, Greene supplies Nardi's crew with goods stolen from the docks. Merke finds out, demands a cut of Greene's profits, and then sends an enforcer to kill him. Instead, Greene beats up the enforcer, then beats up Merke, throws the union leader out of his office, and is later elected union president. He improves the working conditions at the docks while continuing his dealings with Nardi.
Greene's corruption is exposed by The Plain Dealer. Cleveland Police Detective Joe Manditski, who grew up with Greene in Collinwood, arrests him. Bankrupt and facing prison, Greene plea bargains to lesser charges in return for becoming an FBI informant and being banned for life from organized labor. Greene is released and moves his unhappy wife and daughters back to Collinwood. Nardi gets him work as an enforcer for Hungarian Jewish loan shark Shondor Birns, and later helps pitch a deal to Mafia Capo Jack Licavoli: Greene will force the city's garbage haulers to join the union Licavoli controls. Greene, McComber, Sneperger, and ex-Hells Angel Keith Ritson terrorize many into joining, but Greene's friend Mike Frato refuses. Licavoli orders Greene to kill Frato, but Greene balks because Frato has ten children. Nardi tells him privately that, "You wanted to play in the big leagues. Sometimes you have to do things you don't wanna do."
As Greene prepares to kill Frato with a car bomb, he learns from the FBI that Sneperger has returned to gambling, and has become an informant for Manditsky. That night Greene assigns Sneperger to set the bomb under Frato's car and presses the detonator as he does it. An enraged Frato later shoots at Greene in a park. Greene returns fire, kills Frato, and is arrested for murder, but released after Frato's driver tells Manditski that Greene acted in self-defense. Having had enough, Greene's long suffering wife leaves him and takes the children.
Greene sees his elderly Irish neighbor, Grace O'Keefe, being evicted. He intervenes, pays her rent, and she gratefully gives him her father's gold Celtic cross to wear for protection. Greene begins to use his money and connections to help other Irish-Americans in need, and earns the nickname "The Robin Hood of Collinwood".
Greene wants to open his own restaurant, and asks Shondor Birns to help him. Birns arranges a $70,000 loan from the Gambinos, but Birns' courier buys cocaine with the money and gets arrested. Birns and Greene argue over which of them should pay back the money; when Greene refuses to pay, Birns hires a hitman to kill him. Greene narrowly escapes, and later kills Birns with a car bomb.
After Mafia boss John T. Scalish dies, both Nardi and Licavoli are considered for succession. Licavoli is chosen due to his closer ties to the Five Families and decides to charge Greene 30% "street tax" for doing business in Cleveland. Greene refuses to pay, crudely mocks Licavoli's Italian heritage, and vows, "The Irishman's in business for himself now."
An outraged Licavoli has Greene's house blown up, but he survives. He then attempts to demote Nardi and take away his crew, only to have the latter join forces with Greene. Vowing to take over Cleveland together, Greene and Nardi start by organizing the murders of Licavoli's associates, many of whom are blown up. Thirty-six car bombings occur during the summer of 1976, drawing national attention and humiliating Licavoli. After failing multiple times to kill Greene, Licavoli is forced to humbly ask Genovese boss Anthony Salerno to help him kill Nardi and Greene.
Having learned of this from the FBI, Greene claims that he wants to leave Cleveland and buy a ranch in Texas, but needs to raise $2 million. Wishing to size up their enemies, Greene and Nardi travel to New York and invite Salerno to invest in the ranch. After they leave, Salerno orders his associates to hire hitman Ray Ferritto to kill them both. Nardi is killed in a car explosion, Ritson is shot near his house, and McComber dies in a bombing at the Cleveland docks. Detective Manditski lets Greene know that a master killer is after him. He offers Greene protection, but is told, "My enemies will be taken care of."
During a dentist's appointment on October 6, 1977, Greene notices a car being parked next to his but makes nothing of it because the man who left the car was unknown to him. Returning to his car, Greene is stopped by a small group of young boys riding bikes. In a gesture of admiration to the spunkiest of them, he gives the boy a necklace with a meaningful history to him. He notices Ferritto driving by slowly, and accepts that he is about to die. Ferritto detonates a bomb on the car next to Greene's, killing Greene instantly.

Cast

Kill the Irishman had been in development since 1997. Producer Tommy Reid heard that Rick Porrello, an Ohio policeman, was about to publish a book about Greene called To Kill the Irishman. Reid flew to Ohio and met with Porrello, who told Reid his grandfather was a high-ranking Mafia figure in Cleveland during the prohibition era. The meeting went well, and on March 17, 1998, they signed a deal for the film rights to the book. Getting Kill the Irishman produced was difficult. Reid frequently left deals unconcluded, and discovered that the script he'd commissioned was attached to a cover with another screenwriter and producer's name listed. According to Reid, this was a common occurrence in Hollywood, and he claims to have spent over $1 million to ensure the film was made.

Pre-production

Inspiration

Reid was a fan of Mafia movies and aspired to become a filmmaker. Being of Irish and Italian ancestry, he wanted to make a film that would relate to both nationalities. Reid first heard about mobster Danny Greene from his roommates in Ohio, and believed that New York City, Chicago and Boston were the "three meccas of mafia crime". According to Reid, there wasn't much documentation on Greene's life, but after hearing that Porrello was about to publish a book on Greene and the Mafia in Cleveland, he was determined to make a movie about him.

Background research

Prior to making Kill the Irishman, Reid and screenwriter Jeremy Walters conducted research on Greene's life and organized crime in Cleveland. Reid spoke with Sister Barbara Eppich, a nun who helped raise Greene during his childhood. Sister Barbara told Reid of how Greene was abandoned during childhood and was raised by his grandfather. Because his grandfather worked nights, Greene was left to walk the streets. He would go to school dirty on a regular basis, and Sister Barbara would have to wash him. She also stated that Greene would sleep all the time but was a "phenomenal athlete".
Reid spoke to a number of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. The FBI wanted to make sure that Reid wasn't glorifying the Mafia. Reid stated he had no intentions of glorifying crime and that "the whole message at the end of the movie is that crime doesn't pay". On a similar subject, Hensleigh also said the "film was a hero". However, he did note the film provides a balanced perspective.
While researching his role, Stevenson looked at TV footage of Greene and read Porrello's book, To Kill The Irishman. According to Stevenson, there was "quite a bit" of research material available. D'Onofrio, on the other hand, had the opposite experience. Information on Nardi was scarce, so Hensleigh allowed him to improvise on his character.

Screenplay

Although the screenplay was adapted from his book, Porrello had "minimum involvement" in its writing. Hensleigh regularly contacted Porrello, and they agreed not to use the real names of anyone who was still alive, "out of respect and sensitivity" towards them.

Casting

Due to the troubled development of Kill the Irishman, Reid decided to make a documentary about Greene's life, known as Danny Greene: the Rise and Fall of the Irishman. From his research for the movie, Reid became specialized in the Northern Ohio crime scene and Greene's life, and felt that by making the documentary, at least he could go to his "grave 'saying I tried'".
In 2009, with 17 hours of the documentary shot, Reid was told his film had been green-lit. He joined forces with the production company Code Entertainment and engaged with a "reliable" director; Jonathan Hensleigh. They then signed the actors Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken, and later Vincent D'Onofrio, Paul Sorvino, and the Irish actor Ray Stevenson, respectively. Stevenson was filming The Book of Eli when he got a telephone call from Hensleigh, so they arranged to meet in Los Angeles; according to Stevenson, he was drawn to the script and immediately made a deal.

Production

Filming

On May 19, 2009, the film entered principal photography. It was shot within seven weeks, mostly in and around Detroit. This was partly because the city gave tax credits which Cleveland would not match. According to the 2009 report by the Michigan Film Office, Kill the Irishman received roughly $3 million in subsidies. Michigan's film rebate pays up to 42 percent of filmmakers' expenses for costs incurred while filming in the state. Ohio offers only 25 to 35 percent in subsidies, meaning that if the producers spent the same amount filming in Cleveland, they would have received $500,000 to $1.25 million less in subsidies. On the other hand, Stevenson said that they wanted to film in Cleveland, but the city had "prettied itself up" and changed, whereas Detroit was - in his opinion - still "on its knees".
Two incidents occurred during filming. On the first, seven bullet holes were shot into one of the trucks used during production. On the second, the cast and crew were driving from the set, and a pedestrian was shot in the neck outside a supermarket. The ambulance took 35–45 minutes to arrive, and waited a further 35–45 minutes for the police to arrive. The paramedics refused to take the victim to the hospital without a police escort. According to Stevenson, there was a possibility that rival gangmembers would shoot at the paramedics for trying to resuscitate the victim.

Post-production

Effects

Due to the limited budget, some of the effects seen in the film couldn't be replicated. Stevenson said everyone "had to be on point," and that any mistakes couldn't be rectified by re-filming. For example, the producers couldn't afford to shoot the film's final scene twice. Before filming, the production crew and actors had to check everything on the set. Time was also lacking, with Stevenson saying everyone "had to be extremely focused."

Editing

Porrello had second thoughts about one scene being included in the film. This particular scene included the murder of two police officers. Porrello felt uncomfortable approaching Hensleigh, but did so anyway. Porrello said to him: "if you are going to kill a cop", it is "going to change the tone of the story". The scene was nevertheless included in the final cut.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Kill the Irishman may not add much in the way of new ingredients to its crowded genre, but the admirable efforts of a solidly assembled cast add extra depth to a familiar story." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". A number of critics have called the film a ripoff of Goodfellas.
Giving the film a positive review, Mike LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, said "What makes this film special and memorable is the character of Danny Greene, who is not the usual neighborhood hoodlum you see in movies, the kind who gets in deep and gradually loses his soul". Marshall Fine, of the Huffington Post, gave the film a mixed review. He criticized it for jumping through different events in a "jerky fashion", but summed up the review by calling it a "movie with a lot of meat on the bone, even if some of it is tough or stringy. It's not fancy, but it's always tasty".
Robert Abele, of the LA Times, said "the film plays like an explosion's aftermath; shards of mob movies that add up to the usual Goodfellas knockoff". Scott Tobias, of the A.V. Club, had similar views; saying "the biggest problem" with the film "isn't that it rips off Goodfellas", but that plenty of "good films" have "ripped it off well". In regards to the controversy surrounding Kill the Irishman and its purported similarities to Goodfellas, critic Dave Van Houwelingen said:
There are certain movies that serve as a standard bearer for a genre – a high water mark that filmmakers always try to hit, but seem to always come up short. To me, I think Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is that type of film for the gangster genre. In the 21 years since the film was released, so many filmmakers have tried so hard to copy Goodfellas success, and so few have gotten even close to capturing the magic that Scorsese did in one of his very best films. The 21 years have been littered with a bunch of pale imitations. To that list, you can add Jonathan Hensleigh's Kill the Irishman, which wants so desperately to be Goodfellas, and comes up so very, very short.

Hensleigh's directing was criticized. Scott Tobias said the directing "doesn't do much beyond filling in the template". He noted that Hensleigh was telling the "true-life tale" of the mob's decline in Cleveland, but also said that "every character and setpiece felt like it fell off a truck". LA Weeklys Nick Pinkerton held similar views, saying that although "Hensleigh perks up when filming violence, the atmosphere throughout is past-prime, stymieing any strut". Lisa Schwarzbaum, of Entertainment Weekly, also concurred, calling the film's structure "pretty square".
Despite criticizing the film's structure, Schwarzbaum called the cast "tasty", and singled out D'Onofrio, Kilmer, and Walken for praise. Clint O'Connor, of The Plain Dealer, held similar views, saying the "film's greatest strength is its cast". On the contrary, David Rooney held the opposite opinion; saying the "low-wattage cast" is what turned the "potentially strong" film into a "routine crime thriller".

Box office performance

On its opening day, Kill the Irishman earned $42,925 from five theaters. On its second day, the box office receipts increased by 46 percent; earning $62,446 from five theaters. Then on the third day, the film's box office performance dropped by 36 percent; earning $40,059 from five theaters. The gradual decline in box office receipts continued until the eighth day, where the film's gross sharply increased by 373 percent; earning $36,119 from 21 theaters. The film continued to have periodic fluctuations at the box office. By the end of its box office run, Kill the Irishman grossed a total of $1,188,194 at the domestic box office, against a production budget of $12 million, considering it a box office bomb.

Home media

After a limited theatrical release, Kill the Irishman was released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment on June 14, 2011. As of October 22, 2015, the movie has grossed $2,498,115 in US DVD sales.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the film includes 26 songs.
  1. "I'm Gonna Keep On Loving You" - Kool Blues
  2. "Crazy Little Notion" - The Two Guys
  3. "All I Want Is You" - Leroy Osbourne
  4. "I Like the Way You Look at Me" - The Pentagons
  5. "Wrong or Right He's My Baby" - Helene Smith
  6. "How About You" - Steven Lang
  7. "Meet Me for a Martini" - Daniel May
  8. "Paddy on the Landfill" - The Irish Experience
  9. "Courting Clarinets" - Stefan Maciejewsk
  10. "Heart of Gold" - Norman Chandler
  11. "This Is It" - Lewis Lamedica
  12. "Get in a Hurry" - Eugene Blacknell
  13. "You're a Prisoner" - Death
  14. "Broadway Shing-a-Ling" - Soul Blenders
  15. "Daffy Dotty Day" - Lake Smash
  16. "I'm Running Out of Time" - Gary Michael Allen
  17. "Cielo e Mar" - Amilcare Ponchielli
  18. "Sulla Riviera" - Bruno Bertoli
  19. "Eternal Father For" - Michael Hankinson
  20. "Your Smiling Face" - Norman Chandler
  21. "It's Not Too Late" - Christopher Blue
  22. "Drive Drive Drive" - Pat Cusick
  23. "Like a Moth into a Flame" - The Automatics
  24. "Don't Worry Tracy" - Christopher Blue
  25. "Bonny Portmore" - The Rogues
  26. "Seaport Lane" - Athena Tergis

    Historical accuracy

Kill the Irishman contains four historical inaccuracies. This has been noted by critics, one of whom said the film's main problem is that it seemed "all too willing to sacrifice historical accuracy in the name of an easy-to-digest narrative". Shondor Birns was murdered on March 29, 1975, whereas in the film this occurs on March 8. Also, the movie misspells the name of St. Malachi's parish, which onscreen is spelled "St. Malichy's".

The death of Alex "Shondor" Birns

In the movie, Greene kills Shondor Birns by detonating a bomb on his car. In reality, Birns was killed by a car bomb, but there was no evidence to link Greene to his murder. Even though it is commonly speculated that Greene killed Birns, Birns' murder remains officially unsolved.

The death of Art Sneperger

In the movie, Greene discovers his friend Art Sneperger is about to become an informant, so he decides to kill him in a car bombing. Greene has Sneperger place a bomb on Mike Frato's car, and as he is doing it, Greene detonates the bomb early, killing Sneperger in the process. In reality, Greene was questioned by the police, but was never proved to have killed Sneperger.