Word: gleeson
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...target Russborough House actually inspired two feature films about his life and crimes. Dublin crime boss Martin Cahill - a.k.a. the General - had the posthumous privilege of being portrayed by Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey in the thinly fictionalized Ordinary Decent Criminal, released in 2000. (Two years earlier, Brendan Gleeson played the title role in The General.) The real-life Cahill was Ireland's most colorful crook. Fat and balding, he had a passion for pigeons, Harley-Davidson motorbikes and two Dublin sisters by whom he fathered nine children. Cahill's gang arrived in Russborough House one night...
...production designer Rick Carter, handsomely evoke every sci-fi dystopia from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange to Blade Runner and this year's Monkeybone. Come to the Flesh Fair--a sort of Thunderdome demolition derby where vengeful humans, led by the demagogic Lord Johnson-Johnson (Ireland's Brendan Gleeson), set hapless automatons aflame--and try to get out fast. Spend the night in Rouge City, a city of sensual schlock that is filled with Kubrick-a-brac like a Clockwork Orange milk bar and a sign reading STRANGELOVE's. End up in the grayest place on Earth, a submerged Manhattan...
...GENERAL STARRING: Brendan Gleeson, Jon Voight OPENS: New York City, Los Angeles Dec. 30 WIDE...
Cahill (Brendan Gleeson) was, in fact, Dublin's master thug in the 1980s, leader of a gang that pulled off a string of gaudy robberies, and also a great local celebrity. Constantly tailed by the police, he went boldly about the city but always with his face hidden, if only by his own hands. Mocking authority in this way, he enhanced his mystery, hence his power...
That's what's great about Boorman's stunningly realized black-and-white film and about Gleeson's performance, which, like Irish weather, goes from sunny to stormy without warning. Neither film nor actor tries to resolve Cahill's contradictions or anyone's feelings for him. He just-- monstrously--is, a force of nature, beyond our rational reckoning, but not, perhaps, our irrational fascination...