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Ash Wednesday: Riveting

Edward C. Patterson | Allentown, PA | 08/27/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ash Wednesday is a dark movie with a prosaic plot line and a simple theme. But like many simple things, there are layers of complexity in the fabric of this film-mostly from the sturdy script and the superlative character acting. The viewer is given a New York texture-the old neighborhood, even if the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City was leveled twenty years prior to the action-the look and feel is just about right to our mind for a grim Irish Catholic object lesson with a Johnny One-Note theme.

Ed Burns, and it is Ed Burns' film, delivers a solid performance as the repentant Francis Sullivan, who is seeking salvation from his former life. He's not so repentant that he's above adultery, but his brother Sean is supposed to be permanently out of the picture -so does adultery count? Francis is an intense character, gaining credibility through repetitive phrasing as if the only way he knows the next steps are by repeating them. He also wins the F word award as the only adjective in his vocabulary-although his metaphors are as colorful as Archie Bunkers. Burns is riveting in his portrayal and the rest of the cast rides along on the tracks he lays.



Elijah Wood, in an unusual role for him, plays the younger brother, who is imaginative, college material and forward looking, if not a dreamer-but not above killing three men on impulse and returning from the dead on a whim. Wood gives us a foil against Burns' character. While Francis is focused, Sean is not. He lives in a fantasy world (sometimes). He's angry at other times. There could even be a tinge of bi-polarism in this character. Wood unsettles us in his remarkable portrayal, which leaves the character unresolved and allows the audience to forecast Sean's ultimate failure.



Mallachy McCourt as Whitey, the Irish Godfather, gives us a stereotype, but exactly with the right tessitura to make the neighborhood more Irish than Italian. Oliver Platt is excellent as the rival Mike Moran-menacing and uncompromising, vengeful and the villain-type we all cheer when he's killed. Rosario Dawson as Grace Quinonez adds the anguish to the texture, as Burns doesn't do anguish and Wood can't come down to earth long enough to deliver it. As the wife in love with two brothers and the victim of circumstance, she's a bit like Juliet and as such, James Handy, as Father Mahoney, plays the Friar. In fact, the film has many Romeo and Juliet parallels-a hero who murders to protect his best friend (in this case, his brother); a meddlesome nurse (in this case a barfly named Maggie Shea); gang rivalry although not to the pitch of the Montagues and Capulets; and, of course, the theme that families must pay for their darkest crimes with the blood of the innocent (in this case, the not-so-innocent).



The unrelenting darkness of Ash Wednesday, after all Ash Wednesday is supposed to be a heavy day of atonement, might not be for all tastes. However, with a Shakespearean texture, solid performances from Burns and Wood (and the supporting cast of types), this film should not be overlooked, even though you might not pop it in your DVD player as often as The Lord of the Rings. A.

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