Kill the Irishman

BASED ON THE REAL DANNY GREENE:
In Cleveland during the 70’s life was tough, the Union runs the majority of the town and what it don’t the Mafia takes the rest. When a friend gets himself in trouble with one of the local mobsters, Danny Greene (played by Ray Stevenson) takes it upon himself to help his friend out. By going to work for the mob Danny Greene goes from being a tough but good warehouse worker to being a tough but mean mobster. With him being smart, having friends, and tough, Danny climbs quickly in the ranks to become on of the toughest guys around Cleveland. The police want him for all the crime he was committing and the mob want him dead but neither are having any luck in getting what they want.

KILL THE IRISHMAN:
 I’ve seen a lot of movies where the main character is a tough guy but ‘Kill the Irishman’ shows a man that is one very tough dude without having to have him jumping out of buildings or doing some crazy marital arts. Before this movie I didn’t know anything about the man Danny Greene, though I’m not going to take everything this movie portrays of the man as 100% fact, but what I saw was a very interesting movie. This movie about a man that had a rough childhood that lead him to becoming a tough man as well as becoming a criminal.

This movie was something else, great characters, great actors, and a story that just captivated me. What’s most impressive about this movie is the acting by some big name actors such Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer. Though both of these actors are only in the movie for a short period of time they do a superb job when they are on screen. Val Kilmer is the one that introduces the character Danny Greene and narrates some throughout the movie. This narration works very well here, allowing me to get the information I need but doing it where it’s not interfering with the story. I was a little thrown off by the Blu Ray cover by seeing that Christopher Walken in the forefront, Val Kilmer and Vincent D’Onofrio walking behind him, and then just the head of Ray Stevenson floating above them. Seeing this I thought it was going to be Christopher Walken taking center stage but he don’t.

Though I’m glad that Walken and Kilmer only got a small amount of screen time because the movie is all about the character Danny Greene, who was played really well by Ray Stevenson. Even with being a bad guy, and Danny Greene was a bad guy, Ray Stevenson does a good job in making me root for him. He does a good job in bringing this character to life on the screen, which made me like watching him. Here is a criminal, a guy that’s going around beating other men to death with his bare hands, a man who would shoot someone he liked if he had to, is also a man that was going around helping out the neighborhood with food and money. Because of the way that Ray Stevenson portrays Danny Greene it’s hard to not like this criminal.
Along with the characters this movie has a smooth flow to it but it’s not driven by the action that’s in it. There’s actually a lot of action in this movie, not the typical huge explosions, aliens attacking style action, but action as in a gang war between mobsters in the 70’s. There’s cars being blown up, people getting beat, and guys going after each other with guns on the streets.

WATCHING IT ON BLU RAY:
Normally I’m really impressed with the quality level that Blu Rays have to offer but on this one I’m only half impressed. The half that I actually like was the visual aspect of it. Which is really good, all the colors are crisp, and how there’s very little noise in this movie. But what I was not impressed with was the audio levels. These levels are even, which is good, but I still had to turn the volume up, though only once, to get it to a level where I was able to hear everything. There’s no time that I had to fuss with the volume when the louder scenes came on but when I’m used to having my volume level around 10, having to put this movie on 17 was a lot louder than the average Blu Ray that I watch. Other than that, this movie looks really well.