It’s St. Patrick’s Day again, which means everyone not visibly non-white
will claim Irish heritage to better justify their criminal alcohol abuse and
the Celtics will — for one day, at least — be the most celebrated sports
franchise in the land. You’re probably all well acquainted with how to act
like a drunken hooligan in public, but just in case you need some pointers,
here are a few of cinema’s finest representative of the Emerald Isle.
The Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) — Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)
Certainly the most intriguing and complex entry in the six-film (so far)
Leprechaun series. In the Hood also proves that roles in
Breakin’ 2: Electric Booglaoo and Law and Order weren’t
the only high points in Ice-T’s movie career.
Michael McBride (Sean Connery) — Darby O’Gill and the Little
People (1959)
I’m pretty sure Connery decided a long time ago — probably after making
this movie, in fact — that he wasn’t going to screw around with accents
anymore. And his career, playing everyone from King Agamemnon to “Irish” cop
Jim Malone with an unaltered Scottish brogue, would seem to bear this theory
out.
Also, I seem to remember the banshee being a lot creepier when I was six.
Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald) — The Quiet Man (1952)
It was hard not to typecast the Dublin-born Fitzgerald, who spent a lifetime
playing characters with names like “Mulcahy,” “Muldoon,” and “O’Feenaghty.”
However, the drunk, loquacious Flynn was perhaps the most recognizably
“Irish” of all of them, at least to dumb Americans.
The McManus Brothers (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) — The
Boondock Saints (1999)
What makes Boondock Saints so horrible? Is it loathsome
writer/director Troy Duffy? Or his grotesque right-wing fantasies? Don’t get
me wrong, I love tales of vigilante justice, I just prefer when they’re
actually directed by someone who’s better at hiding their Tarantino
rip-offs.
Mickey O’Neil (Brad Pitt) — Snatch (2000)
Which brings us to Guy Ritchie. Truthfully, Mickey embodies the best
qualities of Irishness: incoherence, inebriation, and an almost fanatical
predisposition for violence. It’s like someone made a movie out of that
book, How the Irish Saved Civilization.
This article appears in Mar 11-17, 2010.
