Happy St. Pat's. And Happy Birthday to my favorite Leprechaun Kelly who turns 20 and a half again today.
I don't know about you, but we like to celebrate the day with a tasty breakfast Shepherd's Pie, a nice corned beef and cabbage dinner and a good Irish gangster flick over a cold Guinness.
The Italians get all the credit for the best gangster films but the Irish can crack heads with the best of them. Below are five of my favorites.
1. Miller's Crossing ( 1990 ) - Not only the best Irish mob film ever, the best Coen Brothers' film period. The language. The look. Albert Finney. Gabriel Byrne. "Danny Boy" playing over machine-gun battles. Enough said.
2. The Departed ( 2006 ) - Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning tale of two moles, one an undercover cop ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) who infiltrates an Irish mobster's (Jack Nicholson ) operation, the other a state police investigator ( Matt Damon ) working for said mobster, is a great cat-and-mouse thriller with a slam-bang finale that hits you like a Mack truck.
3. Road to Perdition ( 2002 ) - A '30s-era Irish mob enforcer (an underrated Tom Hanks) seeks revenge against his former employers (Daniel Craig and Paul Newman) for the murder of his wife and son. Great Oscar-winning cinematography. Great score. Great film.
4. State of Grace ( 1990 ) - Undercover cop Sean Penn returns to his old Hell's Kitchen stomping grounds to put away childhood friend Gary Oldman and his crimelord brother Ed Harris. Great shoot-out finale in an Irish pub.
5. Mystic River ( 2003 ) - Ok, not a true gangster flick per se, but Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning story of three Boston boyhood friends, one a former gangster (Sean Penn) seeking the truth about his daughter's murder, remains a gritty crime thriller that compliments the occasion nicely.
Honorable Mentions: The Friends of Eddie Coyle ( 1973) , Gangs of New York ( 2002) , The Town ( 2010 )
