Irish gangster Martin Cahill may have been a murdering creep in real-life, but the on-screen version portrayed by Brendan Gleeson is every bit of all right in this captivating character study by director-screenwriter John Boorman.
Growing up in the Dublin slum Hollyfield, Cahill becomes a bold and crafty thief who develops a strong antipathy for law and order in all its forms. Recruiting a like-minded collection of ex-Hollyfield low lifes around him, he breaks the law repeatedly, and with mounting daring, shoving the low-class verdict of the high and mighty back in their faces.
"I want something big," Cahill tells his men before one of his record-breaking jobs. "To humiliate them."
Gleeson delivers a masterful performance, with his gently cynical grin and half wink, melting our resistance to his criminal ways as we see him play the angles like Little Rascal Spanky all grown up wrong. Seeing him trade barbs with police inspector Ned Kenny (Jon Voight, who surprises with a terrific accent and low-key manner), it's hard not to take sides no matter how much in the wrong you know Cahill to be.
Boorman doesn't even try to have it both ways. Even when Cahill does something nasty, like nailing an associate to a snooker table for suspicion of embezzlement, you wind up only admiring the guy's sense of fairness. Sleeping with his wife's sister? If the wife's for it, why do you mind? Ripping off a collection of Dutch Masters? Well, the owner did exploit Africans, so it serves him right.
You even get mad, along with Cahill, when after one very well-executed job, the IRA tries to bully him into giving up half the haul. "There's nothing' as low as robbin' a robber!" Cahill shouts.
Such selective morality limits "The General" as a lesson in civic responsibility, but it also accounts for why the film is as good as it is, serving as a vehicle for a subversive yet somehow merry view of life it takes which unites "The General" with other Boorman films even if it is visually more muted that what we have come to expect from him, especially in its original black-and-white version.
I get the feeling Boorman was taking his cues from the hit Irish film "The Commitments", which also features actresses Maria Doyle Kennedy and Angeline Ball and a doughy lead ("You're not fat. Just cuddly.") In both there's a kitchen-sink feeling of rain-slick Dublin crumbing under soulful wailing and heavy bass tones, while the characters at the center try to break out of their grim surroundings. One tries through music, the other through crime. The best you can say about "The General" is it almost makes you believe one's as good as the other.
That may be the worst thing about it, too. Cahill's crimes hurt others, as Doyle points out, and ultimately himself as he reaches beyond his means, yet Boorman seems to suggest it's alright because its his life to lose. A better film might have examined the collateral damage more closely, but at risk of being less entertaining.
Growing up in the Dublin slum Hollyfield, Cahill becomes a bold and crafty thief who develops a strong antipathy for law and order in all its forms. Recruiting a like-minded collection of ex-Hollyfield low lifes around him, he breaks the law repeatedly, and with mounting daring, shoving the low-class verdict of the high and mighty back in their faces.
"I want something big," Cahill tells his men before one of his record-breaking jobs. "To humiliate them."
Gleeson delivers a masterful performance, with his gently cynical grin and half wink, melting our resistance to his criminal ways as we see him play the angles like Little Rascal Spanky all grown up wrong. Seeing him trade barbs with police inspector Ned Kenny (Jon Voight, who surprises with a terrific accent and low-key manner), it's hard not to take sides no matter how much in the wrong you know Cahill to be.
Boorman doesn't even try to have it both ways. Even when Cahill does something nasty, like nailing an associate to a snooker table for suspicion of embezzlement, you wind up only admiring the guy's sense of fairness. Sleeping with his wife's sister? If the wife's for it, why do you mind? Ripping off a collection of Dutch Masters? Well, the owner did exploit Africans, so it serves him right.
You even get mad, along with Cahill, when after one very well-executed job, the IRA tries to bully him into giving up half the haul. "There's nothing' as low as robbin' a robber!" Cahill shouts.
Such selective morality limits "The General" as a lesson in civic responsibility, but it also accounts for why the film is as good as it is, serving as a vehicle for a subversive yet somehow merry view of life it takes which unites "The General" with other Boorman films even if it is visually more muted that what we have come to expect from him, especially in its original black-and-white version.
I get the feeling Boorman was taking his cues from the hit Irish film "The Commitments", which also features actresses Maria Doyle Kennedy and Angeline Ball and a doughy lead ("You're not fat. Just cuddly.") In both there's a kitchen-sink feeling of rain-slick Dublin crumbing under soulful wailing and heavy bass tones, while the characters at the center try to break out of their grim surroundings. One tries through music, the other through crime. The best you can say about "The General" is it almost makes you believe one's as good as the other.
That may be the worst thing about it, too. Cahill's crimes hurt others, as Doyle points out, and ultimately himself as he reaches beyond his means, yet Boorman seems to suggest it's alright because its his life to lose. A better film might have examined the collateral damage more closely, but at risk of being less entertaining.