General, The

The General

           John Boorman has proven to be a mater filmmaker and his work continually surprises.
Rather than finding one genre and sticking with it, he constantly experiments. While some of his
early films are rather undistinguished, Point Blank (1967) has acquired a patina as a fine
well-made, well-acted thriller. In the 70s, Boorman gave us Deliverance (1972), which brought
his first Academy Award nominations, and he truly flowered in the 80s, achieving his dream project
of Excalibur (1981), delving into life in the jungles of The Emerald Forest (1985) and offering
reminiscences of life during WWII in the Oscar-nominated Hope and Glory (1987). While his
output in the 90s has been sporadic, he was in top form with The General, a biographical study
of notorious Irish gangster Martin Cahill.

         The film opens with Cahill (played by Brendan Gleeson) getting in his car, watching as an
assassin approaches and being shot to death. The car skids forward and a crowd gathers. Then,
suddenly, everything reverses, the car moves back , the bullets fly into the gun and Boorman freezes
the camera on Cahill as he spots the assassin. Dissolving into the scene is the face of a
teenager (Eamonn Owens playing the young Martin) and the story proceeds. There are telling
scenes of how this master criminal formed his belief system as a youth. Eventually, the adult
Martin takes center stage. There have been some who have voiced concerns that the director and
company have glorified thievery, but that is not the case. As writer and director, Boorman has
taken great pains to present the man, warts and all. There is something comical about Cahill and
his exploits — he manages to find ways of circumventing the system in fascinating ways. For
example, when in need of arms, he robbed the police arsenal or when he (or a member of his gang)
was on trial, files would mysteriously disappear from government offices. But Cahill also had a
code of ethics under which he operated and to which he expected his men to adhere.

         By its nature, the film is episodic, focusing on a few of the more daring and bizarre exploits:
robbing a jewelers that even the IRA had declared could not be hit; stealing priceless works of art
and brokering a deal with renegade members of the IRA. At the same time, Boorman depicts the
two sides of the man's character, the loving father and husband (who admittedly was shared by
sisters!) and the leader who will not tolerate fools in his pack. There are excruciatingly difficult
scenes as Cahill crucifies one of his gang to a pool table because he suspects the man of stealing.

         At the heart of the film and one of the reasons it works so well is the performance of Brendan
Gleeson. A bearish redhead, Gleeson has offered superlative work in films including Braveheart,
The Butcher Boy and I Went Down. Bearing more than a passing physical resemblance to the
real-life Cahill, he delivers a strong anchoring portrait of a complex figure, an intelligent man
fueled by anger at the systems that have oppressed him. Stubborn, sexy, crafty, ironic, his Martin
is a man of many faces yet the character has a tendency to hide his features in public behind his
hand or under a jacket hood to avoid detection. Matching him and acting in counterpoint is
Jon Voight as the police inspector Ned Kenney (a fictional character). Kenney sees the man
that Cahill might have been and tries to push him away from a life of crime with little result. The
impeccable supporting cast includes Adrian Dunbar, Sean McGinley, Tom Murphy, Angeline Ball
and Maria Doyle Kennedy.

         Working with the gifted cinematographer Seamus Deasy (who shot the film on color stock
but printed it as black-and-white to avoid "prettifying" the story's locations), Boorman has created
a stunning look into the heart and soul of a master thief. There might be debate over whether he
actually captured this enigmatic figure, but what he does present is both entertaining and
thought-provoking. There are other versions of Cahill's life on film, including Ordinary Decent
Criminal, a fictionalized account with Kevin Spacey in the lead, but Boorman and his cast set
the gold standard.

                                                           Rating:        A-