Flick

I just saw this at the Irishreels Film Festival in Seattle and really enjoyed it. Writer/director Fintan Connolly attended the screening and took questions afterwards. This was his first feature film, and it was done on a shoestring budget. He said the two lead male actors, David Murray and David Wilmot, are best friends in real life, which made it easier for them to play similar roles in the film. David Murray, in his first major acting role, plays the lead character, Jack Flinter (aka "Flick"). He does a solid, bang-up job carrying the picture. There are a lot of close-ups of his long, slightly pock-marked face and he is mostly deadpan but nonetheless quite compelling. He and his buddy Des (Wilmot) are small-time drug dealers operating around the club scene in Dublin. They get into trouble when they try to take their little "business" to the next level, contacting the Irish mob to work a deal with them. Things spiral out of control thanks in part to the local police, and Jack seeks comfort with an attractive young woman he's met recently in a nightclub named Isabelle, played by Isabelle Menke. Isabelle holds the emotional center of the picture, and provides Jack some much-needed, if not necessarily deserved, relief. The soundtrack is nice with a mix of classic and jazz sounds. The whole thing was apparently filmed in just 18 days. It takes place in Dublin, but Dublin kind of stands for "any major city" and there aren't too many distinctively Dublin shots. The supporting cast of older mob-like characters lend an authentic weight to the proceedings. I would recommend this film to anyone who liked "Reservoir Dogs" (although this is less violent) or "The General", among others.