‘Based on the true story of Danny Greene the man the mob couldn’t kill’
Directed by:
Jonathan Hensleigh
Written by:
Jonathan Hensleigh
Jeremy Walters
Rick Porrello (book ‘To Kill the Irishman’)
Cast:
Ray Stevenson (Danny Greene), Vincent D’Onofrio (John Nardi), Val Kilmer (Joe Manditski), Christopher Walken (Shondor Birns), Linda Cardellini (Joan Madigan), Tony Darrow (Mikey Mendarolo), Robert Davi (Ray Ferritto), Fionnula Flanagan (Grace O’Keefe), Vinnie Jones (Keith Ritson), Steve Schirripa (Mike Frato)
Bulletproof Gangster (also known as Kill the Irishman, after the book it’s based on) is a biopic about former union man turned Irish mob boss Danny Greene, set during the Cleveland Mafia war of the 1970s, in which his enemies failed time and again to kill him. Hence the title although Kill the Irishman might be more fitting, since they mostly tried to kill him with bombs rather than bullets.
It’s a classic rags-to-riches story. Greene starts as a dockworker, albeit a well-read one. He didn’t finish school but was famously self-educated. With the backing of mobster John Nardi, he rises to become a popular union president.
Meanwhile, his old neighborhood friend Joe (Val Kilmer) joins the Cleveland PD, following his former friend’s career and narrating the story. After Greene’s arrest, he’s barred from union work for life, so he enters the garbage business with mobster Jack Licavoli’s blessing.
But when mob boss John Scalish – who ran the Cleveland mob since the 1940s – dies, a brutal gang war erupts between Greene and Nardi on one side and Licavoli on the other. That summer, bomb after bomb rocks Cleveland, killing many gangsters. How long can the seemingly blessed Irishman survive?
This gangland tale covers one of the few untold chapters of American Mafia history. Director Jonathan Hensleigh, screenwriter of Die Hard With a Vengeance, clearly has a penchant for explosives, and it shows in this appropriately explosive film. The cast features many familiar faces from gangster movies, including Paul Sorvino as Tony Salerno.
Of the cast members, especially Vincent D’Onofrio and Christopher Walken stand out as the historical mob figures John Nardi and Jewish gang boss Shondor Birns.
Bulletproof Gangster might not be a biopic as captivating as GoodFellas, Casino or Donnie Brasco, but offers what you might expect: an entertaining mob film with one retaliation after the other.
Rating:
Quote:
DANNY GREENE: “I’m an Irish catholic with the grace of God on my shoulder. I’m not going anywhere until he says so.”
Trivia:
The plot to kill the Irishman (Danny Greene) involved an unprecedented breach of FBI security when a clerk was bribed by the mob and actually stole a list of confidential informants from a top secret room. Cleveland agents acted quickly, plugging the leak and arresting their clerk.
FRAGMENTEN UIT HET SCHEMERLAND 