Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9688 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-08-14
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: Black & White, Colour, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Best known for Deliverance (1972), John Boorman produced what is arguably his greatest film with Point Blank (1967). In that ambiguous gangster flick, set in a pastel L.A. wasteland, Lee Marvin may or may not be a walking dead man, animated by the desire to avenge his fatal betrayal by the woman he loved and his best friend. Many of Boorman's films take the form of quests, fuelled by some dream of utopia; on some level, Point Blank is the tragedy of a just man, appalled and ultimately defeated by the complexity of his world's corruption. The General begins with the death of Martin Cahill--celebrated Dublin gangster who stole millions during the 1980s--then literally reverses the approach and assault of his IRA assassin, flashing back in time, back through Cahill's colorful, criminal quest for his kind of ideal community. Boorman says his Cahill is a throwback to those Celtic chieftains of old who ruled by thievery and violence; as an anachronism, this charming, brutal bear of a man (perfectly incarnated by Brendan Gleeson) is undeniably reprehensible, but he stands in deliberate contrast to the institutionalised hypocrisy and corruption of church, state, and IRA alike. Brazenly hanging out in police HQ to establish an alibi; manoeuvring gracefully through perfectly choreographed heists; dispensing affection to his wife, and her sister; nailing the hands of a suspected cheat to a pool table; handing out food to women whose husbands are out of work--Gleeson's bluff, often comic gangster is always bigger than life, an eruption of unsocialized energy through the layers-deep sediment of socially acceptable sin. (In real life as in the film, Cahill always hid his face under a sweatshirt hood, or behind his spread fingers--he looks like some mischievous, giant-child.) Shot by the great Seamus Deasey in colour, then transferred to black-and-white stock, The General is visually voluptuous, the anatomy of a charismatic monster's soul expressed in lustrous light, silken shades of gray, and ebony shadows.-- Kathleen Murphy

Synopsis
Brendan Gleeson stars as Martin Cahill, the leading Irish criminal of the 1980s. A protean figure, Cahill was a man of extraordinary intelligence, obsessive secretiveness, and vicious brutality who was never stopped by the Irish police despite having pocketed more than $60 million of other people's money. He was also capable of generosity to those in need and exuded a contagious joie de vivre that made him a hero to Ireland's poor and working-class population. Born into poverty in the slums of Hollyfield, Cahill ends up in reform school after robbing a local merchant. Given his abilities, his rise in the world of crime is swift, abetted by a violent streak that has him nailing a partner to a pool table when he mistakently suspects him of talking to the cops. His creative domestic arrangements have him married to Frances (Maria Doyle Kennedy) while also begetting children with her sister, Tina (Angeline Ball). Although he enjoyed mocking every form of authority from the church and the government to the IRA, he had an unspoken bond with police inspector Ned Kenny (Jon Voight), who curses himself for allowing this latter-day Celtic chieftain to charm even a cop. A completely engrossing film anchored by the brilliant Gleeson and a terrific supporting cast, THE GENERAL was shot by director John Boorman in colour and printed in crisp black and white.

Customer Reviews

Another misfire from Boorman
John Boorman's 1998 The General was hailed as a major comeback, though it's hard to see why on the evidence of the film itself. One of three films made that year about famed Dublin criminal Martin Cahill (alongside Ordinary Decent Criminal and Vicious Circles), it has an abundance of incident and style (the film was shot in color but released in b&w Scope in some territories) but makes absolutely no impact and just goes on forever. With a main character who threatens witnesses, car bombs doctors, causes a hundred people to lose their jobs, tries to buy off the sexually abused daughter of one of his gang to keep out of jail and nails one of his own to a snooker table yet still remains a popular local legend and an attractive enough personality for his wife to not only approve but actually suggest a ménage a trios with her sister, it needs a charismatic central performance to sell the character and the film. It doesn't get it. Instead, it's lumbered with what may well be Brendan Gleeson's worst and most disinterested performance: he delivers his lines and stands in the right place but there's nothing to suggest either a local hero or the inner workings of a complex character. On the plus side, this helps not to overglamorize a character who is nothing more than an egotistical thug, but it's at odds with a script that seems to be expecting us to love him and his antics.

There's a minor section that picks up interest when the IRA whips up a local hate campaign against the `General' and his men, painting them as `anti-social' drug dealers purely because Cahill won't share his loot from a robbery with them, but its temporary resolution is so vaguely shot - something to do with Cahill donning a balaclava and joining the protestors which we're expected to find loveably cheeky - that it's just thrown away. Things are more successful in the last third as the pressure mounts and his army falls apart, but by then it's too late to really care. Adrian Dunbar, Maria Doyle Kennedy and the gorgeous Angeline Ball do good work in adoring supporting roles, but Jon Voight's hammy Garda beat cop seems to be there more for American sales than moral balance, overcompensating for Gleeson's comatose non-involvement in what feels like a total misfire. Come back Zardoz, all is forgiven.

A charismatic Brendan Gleeson in an excellent John Boorman film
Martin Cahill was a real person. He didn't drink or smoke, had a loving if unconventional family life with his wife, her sister and their kids, didn't womanize. He also was clever, funny, charismatic, ruthless, and, up until the end, a successful Dublin criminal. He didn't see his crimes as vice, just as an occupation. In addition to hundreds of burglaries and thefts beginning when he was scarcely a teen, he was smart enough to pull off two immense robberies, the first involving a large number of gold bars and jewels, the other of extremely valuable paintings. He wound up on the bad side of the cops, of the IRA, of the Unionists and even of one of his gang members.

John Boorman has written and directed a fascinating life of Martin Cahill, and in Brendan Gleeson he found an actor who has made the role come perfectly to life. Martin Cahill was a shrewd and stubborn man. He grew up in some of the worst of public housing in Dublin. He had no use for the police, except as a butt of his contempt. When civic powers begin to tear down his housing flat, he refused to move. They and the police finally offer him a flat near by. No, he says, I want a house in...and he names one of the better parts of Dublin. "But wouldn't you rather live with your own kind," a pompous city type asks him. "Oh no," Cahill says to the man and to the police standing nearby, "I'd rather live closer to me work." He gets his house, and his standard of living improves markedly. As one critic said, Martin Cahill was Robin Hood but with a twist; he stole from the rich and gave to himself. Once when his wife and sister-in-law convince him to buy a nice house, he learns he can't pay for it with cash; he needs a bank draft. He goes to the bank with 80,000 pounds sterling, gets his bank draft...and as soon as he leaves, has his gang rob the bank and retrieve his 80,000.

He doesn't like to be questioned and he doesn't like betrayal. When he thinks one of his gang has talked about a theft, he personally nails the man's hands to a snooker table. Afterwards, when he decides the guy must be telling the truth, he pulls the nails out, tells him, "You came through with flying colors, Jimmy," and drives him to the emergency room of a hospital where he insists the doctors treat him immediately.

Throughout all of this, he's fascinating. We wind up reluctantly admiring him for facing down the guarda who are after him and who don't have clean hands, either. He's not intimidated by the IRA who tell him clearly they want the take from Cahill's cleverly planned robbery of O'Connor's Wholesale Jewelry warehouse. He faces down with contempt an effort by the Unionists to warn him off their territory. And all the while the guarda have become incensed by Cahill's success and impudence.

The end of the movie is the beginning of the movie. We learn Martin Cahill's fate in the first three minutes. The rest of the movie is the intriguing story of just what made Cahill so interesting and so successful as a criminal.

Brendan Gleeson is an excellent actor. He's a beefy guy and had to wear a lank comb-over throughout. He captures the charisma and the passion behind Martin Cahill. Cahill may have been the product of Dublin's slums; he may have had only a sketchy education, but Gleeson nails Cahill as a leader of men, a funny, skeptic, crafty and dangerous man. John Voight plays police inspector Ned Kenny, an aging cop who is determined one way or another to bring Cahill down. Cahill's gang are all made up of first-rate Irish actors, including Adrian Dunbar and Sean McGinley. Maria Doyle Kennedy as Cahill's wife and Angeline Ball as her sister, both of whom share Cahill in a loving and affectionate relationship, are first-rate.

John Boorman has created an engrossing portrait of a complex man, and he has produced a movie which is well worth owning and watching.

Not anywhere near as dull as it looks
I recently read a review in a magazine that described this film as a plodding standard issue biopic. If there is one thing this movie is not, then it's being ploddingly standard issue. Instead it's a nimble, virtuoso piece of writing, directing and acting. It represents a career peak for Boorman (Deliverance, Hope and Glory) and the lead actor Brendan Gleeson (M:I 2 being the type of stuff he's appeared in since).

The subject matter and the black and white photography makes it appear dull, serious and weighed down with its own importance. It's not. Imagine Michael "The Rock" Bay directing a Northern Ireland IRA drama and you'll get a sense of how much fun this is.

This is one of the best made movies I have ever seen. It nips along at a great pace and is wickedly funny. If you liked the Kevin Spacey scenes in American Beauty then you'll enjoy Martin Cahill's attitude towards authority.

John Voight is the only thing I can't praise about this movie.