WHITE IRISH DRINKERS
Year: 2010
USA: Screen Media Films
Cast: Stephen Lang, Peter Riegert, Karen Allen, Nick Thurston, Geoff Wigdor, Lesley Murphy, Zachary Booth, Robbie Collier Sublett, Michael Drayer, Henry Zebrowski, Ken Jennings, Regan Mizrahi, Anthony Amorim
Director: John Gray
Country: USA
USA: 109 mins
USA Rated: R for pervasive language, some sexuality and violence
USA Release Date: 25 March 2011 (Limited Release)
Synopsis
"Blood is thicker than Brooklyn."
It’s early autumn of 1975 in Brooklyn and 18 year-old Brian Leary (Nick Thurston) passes the time pulling off petty crimes with his street tough older brother Danny (Geoff Wigdor), whom he both idolizes and fears. He doesn’t really want to be a criminal, but he doesn’t share his old friends’ dreams of working 9-to-5 Civil Service jobs with benefit packages to retirement. Nor does want to be like his best friend Todd (Zachary Booth) either, who has betrayed their blue-collar roots by accepting a scholarship to college. But Brian has a secret - he’s a talented artist.
At home his drunken father Paddy (Stephen Lang) argues with his world-weary mother (Karen Allen) and he slips on his headphones and paints. He can’t block out the brutal beatings his drunken father inflicts on Danny. Besides his art, Brian finds respite in working for Whitey (Peter Riegert) who runs the failing Lafayette movie theater in Bay Ridge. Brian’s been helping Whitey pay his debts to local mobster Jimmy Cheeks (Ken Jennings) by getting rock groups to play gigs at the theater. Mounting debts drive Whitey to contact an old friend, now the tour manager of the Rolling Stones. The Stones will stop to play the Lafayette on their way to Madison Square Garden.
Danny can’t face staying at home anymore after another excessive beating from Paddy, so he tries to enlist Brian in one last scheme - to rob the Lafayette on the night of the Rolling Stones concert. Danny sees this as their only chance to get enough money to skip town and start them both off in a new life, somewhere far away from Brooklyn. Brian is agonisingly torn between his love and loyalty to his brother and his real fondness for Whitey…