Kill the Irishman

In 1960, Danny Greene and his childhood friends Billy McComber and Art Sneperger are longshoremen on the Cleveland docks. Sneperger's gambling leaves him with a huge debt to Cleveland Mafia captain John Nardi. In return for Sneperger's debt being forgiven, Danny supplies Nardi with goods stolen from the docks. Corrupt labor union boss Jerry Merke finds out, demands a cut of Danny's profits, and sends his Polish American enforcer Joe Buka to kill him. Danny tells Polack jokes to provoke Buka into a fist fight and beats him unconscious. He kicks Merke out of his office, and is elected local union president. He improves the working conditions at the docks all while doing business with Nardi. Danny's own corruption as union president is revealed in an exposé by the local newspaper. Cleveland police detective Joe Manditski, who grew up with Danny in Collinwood, arrests him. Broke and facing prison, Danny pleads to lesser charges in return for becoming an FBI informant. Danny moves his unhappy wife and daughters back to Collinwood and Nardi gets him work as an enforcer for Jewish loan shark Shondor Birns. Nardi then brokers a deal with Mafia captain Jack Licavoli for Danny to force the city's garbage haulers to join a union Licavoli controls. Danny's crew terrorizes trash haulers into joining the union, but Danny's friend Mike Frato refuses. Licavoli orders Danny to kill Frato, but Danny balks because Frato has ten children. Nardi counsels him privately that Frato's refusal can not go unpunished. Danny learns from the FBI that Sneperger has returned to gambling and has become a police informant. Sneperger is assigned to set a remote controlled bomb under Frato's car, but Danny sets it off as he is doing it. An enraged Frato later starts shooting at Danny in a park. Danny returns a single shot to Frato's head, killing him. Danny is arrested, but released when Frato's driver tells Manditski that Danny acted in self-defense. Having had enough, Danny's long suffering wife leaves him and takes their children. Danny wants to open an upscale restaurant and lounge and asks Birns for help. Birns arranges a $70,000 loan from Paul Castellano of the Gambino family, but Birns' courier buys cocaine and gets arrested with the remaining money. Birns and Danny have a falling out over who should pay the money back and Birns offers $25,000 to whoever kills Danny. Danny narrowly escapes, and kills Birns with a car bomb. After Mafia boss John T. Scalish dies, both Nardi and Licavoli are considered for succession. Licavoli is chosen by New York's Five Families and decides to charge Danny a 30% "street tax" for doing business in Cleveland. Danny refuses to pay, crudely mocks Licavoli's Italian heritage, and vows, "The Irishman's in business for himself now." An outraged Licavoli has Danny's house blown up, but he and his girlfriend survive. Licavoli then attempts to demote Nardi and take away his business, only to have the latter join forces with Danny. Vowing to take over Cleveland together, Danny and Nardi start by organizing the murders of several of Licavoli's men. Danny escapes several bungled attempts on his life and the summer of 1976 sees 36 bombings in the Cleveland area between the warring gangs. The national attention it draws forces a humiliated Licavoli to ask Genovese boss Anthony Salerno in New York for help. Wanting a new life away from Cleveland with his new fiancé, Danny makes Salerno an offer: in return for Danny surrendering the war to Licavoli, Salerno will invest in a Texas ranch that Danny will start. Salerno arranges for hitman Ray Ferritto to travel to Cleveland and work for Licavoli. Ferritto turns the tide for the Cleveland Mafia and all of Danny's closest allies, including Nardi, are killed. Detective Manditski offers Danny protection, but Danny refuses. Ferrito taps Danny's girlfriend's phone and learns that Danny has a dentist appointment. After the appointment, Danny checks his car for any explosive devices before realizing Ferritto planted a bomb in the parked car next to his. Ferrito detonates the bomb, killing Danny. A post-script narrated by Manditsky describes how Danny's murder crippled the American Mafia, first in Cleveland and then nationwide. ==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. 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 had 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 (including The Godfather and Goodfellas) 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 was not 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. Reid spoke to a number of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. The FBI wanted to make sure that Reid was not 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". While researching his role, Stevenson looked at TV footage of Greene and read Porrello's book, To Kill The Irishman. 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, to be entitled 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 ==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. Michigan's film rebate paid up to forty-two percent of filmmakers' expenses for costs incurred while filming in the state, whereas Ohio offered only twenty-five to thirty-five 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 had wanted to film in Cleveland, but the city had "prettied itself up" and changed, while Detroit remained, in his opinion, "on its knees". At one point during filming, seven bullet holes were shot into one of the crew's trucks used for the production. Another day, as the cast and crew were leaving the set, a pedestrian was shot in the neck outside a supermarket. The ambulance took thirty-five to forty-five minutes to arrive and waited a similar amount of time the police to arrive, as the paramedics refused to take the victim to the hospital without a police escort. According to Stevenson, there was a possibility that rival gang members might 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 could not be replicated. Stevenson said everyone "had to be on point," and that any mistakes could not be rectified by re-filming. For example, the producers could not afford to shoot the film's final scene (in which Greene is killed via a car explosion) 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 63% based on 51 reviews. 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." A number of critics have called the film a ripoff of Goodfellas (1990). 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". 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". 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. 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 (with an average gross of $8,585 per theater). On its second day, the box office receipts increased by 46 percent, earning $62,446 from five theaters (with an average gross of $12,489 per theater). Then on the third day, the film's box office performance dropped by 36 percent, earning $40,059 from five theaters (with an average gross of $8,012 per theater). 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 (with an average gross of $1,720 per theater). 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, and so is considered 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. • "I'm Gonna Keep On Loving You" - Kool Blues • "Crazy Little Notion" - The Two Guys • "All I Want Is You" - Leroy Osbourne • "I Like the Way You Look at Me" - The Pentagons • "Wrong or Right He's My Baby" - Helene Smith • "How About You" - Steven Lang • "Meet Me for a Martini" - Daniel May • "Paddy on the Landfill" - The Irish Experience • "Courting Clarinets" - Stefan Maciejewsk • "Heart of Gold" - Norman Chandler • "This Is It" - Lewis Lamedica • "Get in a Hurry" - Eugene Blacknell • "You're a Prisoner" - Death • "Broadway Shing-a-Ling" - Soul Blenders • "Daffy Dotty Day" - Lake Smash • "I'm Running Out of Time" - Gary Michael Allen • "Cielo e Mar" - Amilcare Ponchielli • "Sulla Riviera" - Bruno Bertoli • "Eternal Father For" - Michael Hankinson • "Your Smiling Face" - Norman Chandler • "It's Not Too Late" - Christopher Blue • "Drive Drive Drive" - Pat Cusick • "Like a Moth into a Flame" - The Automatics • "Don't Worry Tracy" - Christopher Blue • "Bonny Portmore" - The Rogues • "Seaport Lane" - Athena Tergis ==References==