A man you don’t meet every day - 'Kill the Irishman' - SEE VIDEO

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CAHIR O'DOHERTY,

Irish Voice Reporter

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'Kill the Irishman'

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Read more: New movie ‘Kill the Irishman’ takes a look at Cleveland’s mob history - SEE VIDEO

In Kill the Irishman, the by turns hilarious and terrifying portrait of the Irish American man who brought down the mafia, Ray Stevenson gives an unforgettable portrait of an unhinged underdog whose near insanity turns the crime world upside down. CAHIR O’DOHERTY talks to the principals involved in the riveting film.

People who have nothing to lose are the most dangerous people of all.  Having grown up knowing they matter to no one, they can take it into their heads that nothing else matters either.

In the new film Kill the Irishman we meet one such desperate man in the shape of Danny Greene (played by 46-year-old Lurgan, Co. Armagh-born Irish actor Ray Stevenson) the Irish American working class Cleveland boy who, despite the odds stacked against him, is determined to make a name for himself in the world.

Greene’s debut is literally explosive. In the summer of 1976, when Kill the Irishman is set, no less that 36 bombs explode in Cleveland as a turf war he set off rages between himself and the mob.

Now most betting people would give the advantage to the mob, and that’s why this film is so powerfully fascinating -- the mob loses.

Incredibly, Kill the Irishman, which opens this Friday, March 11, is based on the true story of how a fearless Irish American boy turned the tables on the famous loan shark Shonder Birns (played by a delightfully exasperated Christopher Walken) and stopped taking orders from the capos, instead striking out on his own power trip.

Greene’s enemies discover he has an almost Road Runner like ability to evade certain death, and it begins to unnerve them all.

Kill the Irishman isn’t just the film’s title; it’s the increasingly angry command from the crime bosses. Soon they begin to suspect he’s getting supernatural help and his legend is born.

But where does a man like Danny Greene, who studied Irish history voraciously and insisted that all his associates do the same, come from? In the film the answer is simple -- he comes from a predominantly Italian neighborhood where, between the ages of 12 and 16 he had a fistfight with the neighbors every single day.

“He was an underdog in a town full of them,” says Jonathan Hensleigh, the film’s writer and director (known for his work on Die Hard: With A Vengeance and Jumanji).

“Irish people are the only ones who see the deep connection between Danny Greene’s tough upbringing, where he lived his life every day like he had nothing to lose, and the terrifying casualness he had about life and death later on.”

Greene wore green clothes, drove green cars and hung a green crucifix around his neck. It was as if he wanted to bamboozle his enemies by being Irish on stilts.

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