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Ash Wednesday

2002, Movie, R, 98 mins

Ash Wednesday: Review

ASH WEDNESDAY
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A gloomy remembrance of Hell's Kitchen past, set almost entirely over the course of a long, dismal day in 1983. Francis Sullivan (Ed Burns) is a reformed son of the old Hell's Kitchen, a working class, traditionally Irish neighborhood on Manhattan's West Side. Francis's late father, a brutal brawler who controlled the longshoremen's union, taught him the rules of the street while shielding Francis's college-bound younger brother, Sean (Elijah Wood), from the neighborhood's pervasive violence and corruption. After Sean's murder in 1980, Francis cleaned up his act with the help of seen-it-all parish priest Father Mahoney (James Handy); he now runs a bar and stays out of trouble, though his relationship with Sean's widow, Grace (Rosario Dawson), has raised eyebrows. But the past comes skulking back, as it's wont to do. On Ash Wednesday, three years to the day after Sean's battered arm was fished out of the river, the buzz is that Sean's been seen around the neighborhood. Aging local crime lord Whitey (Malachy McCourt) orders Francis to look into it before the rumors get out of hand. After all, the rest of Sean's body was never found, and he shot the brother and cousin of up-and-coming thug Moran (Oliver Platt). If Sean's alive Moran won't rest until he's well and truly dead, which will mean bloodshed enough for everyone. The fact is, Sean is still alive and hidden in Francis's apartment; he's returned from an involuntary three-year exile for Grace and recklessly showed his face on the familiar streets. As Francis tries to figure out how to make things right, the full story of what happened three years earlier gradually leaks out. This may be Burns's strongest film since THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN (1995). Its sense of time and place is palpable (the use of period songs is especially evocative), the dark, jewel-toned cinematography is nearly painterly without being showy, and the stakes are ambitiously high — Francis isn't just trying to save his brother, he's struggling for his very soul. Unfortunately, Burns is his own worst enemy: He's a better writer-director than actor, and while his hangdog scruffiness is better suited to hoods than leading men, his habitual smirk undermines Francis's moral struggles. The impish Wood is a little light as Sean, who's inextricably bound by the same family ties that robbed him of a promising future and made him a fugitive from the only life he's even known, but the supporting cast is top-notch. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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