The Run of the Country (1995)

Peter Yates' "Run of the Country" (1995) is a pretty obscure picture and only available on VHS. I was able to secure a brand-new copy recently for only 25 cents. But maybe it's not so obscure since a poster for it can be seen at a cinema in a 1995 episode of Seinfeld, "The Pool Guy" (season 7, episode 8).THE PLOT: Near the border of Northern Ireland an 18 year-old named Danny (Matt Keeslar) leaves home after the death of his mother due to serious friction with his gruff father (Albert Finney), a local cop. Danny moves in with his free-spirited friend, Cocoa (Anthony Brophy), and learns the ropes of manhood, including an intimate relationship with a girl across the border, Annagh (Victoria Smurfit). When crises strike he finally comes to understand his... (watch the film and find out).Shot in the Redhills, County Cavan, area of Ireland, near the border, "Run of the Country" is a realistic coming-of-age drama. The acting is great across the board, especially Finney as the father and Brophy as Danny's wild friend. Simply put, this is quality drama with laughs, romance, conflict, action and gorgeous photography of rural Ireland.GRADE: B

Director Peter Yates and actor Albert Finney the team of "The Dresser" back again in a different movie, the nice and cruel "The Run of the Country" an history set in Ireland. Nice film because of the scenery, the cast, the story although it's nothing new and some other things. Cruel film because of the way some things, necessary or not, were told but first let me introduce the story. Danny (Matt Keeslar) is an very innocent teenage who recently lost his mother and has to live with his tough father (Albert Finney) a police inspector who's main interest is to make his son move with a aunt in America where he could study in a good college. Danny is kind of lost in what to do with his life, and tired of deal with the father he moves to the house of his friend Prunty (Anthony Brophy) a very pleasant and funny lad. The rest of the movie is a cliché after a cliché: Danny falls in love for the first time after meeting Annagh (Victoria Smurfit) a rich girl, she got pregnant, they don't know what to do, Danny's father thinks he ruined his life with that and all kinds of things. Now here comes some unusual and unnecessary things. What bothered me in this story about growing up is the way Yates dealt with the subject or perhaps the way writer Shane Connaughton wrote was cruel and excessive to with own material (he wrote the novel and the film). In this drama there's too much deaths (more deaths than in "Goodfellas") and there's nothing in it that explain to us what's the point of all that. 8 funerals: Danny's mother, Danny and Annagh's son, a mouse, a pig recently blessed by Danny in a prank, two Biritsh pilots, a drunk man who was decapitated while sleeping in the forest (it isn't showed but it's actually scary) and Prunty (who has the weirdest death scene in the movie). I mean the story moves well but these things almost made me think that it was a ridiculous and pessimistic film. Very downer. Another unusual scene was when Annagh's parents punished Danny for get involved with her. Sometimes adapt your own novel to the screen needs a better development and some liberties must be taken otherwise it becomes a excessive freak show. Finney's performance was okay, he's always a great actor and let's face it, the 1990's wasn't a memorable decade to him in films. The real good thing here was Matt Keeslar, good actor who haven't got any major role after this (except for "Splendor"). His manners and looks were very believable in his portrayal of a shattered young man trying to find his own way in the world after many bad things happened. Not the best work of Peter Yates but not his worst also (I haven't seen his worst yet, he's a great director). 6/10

"Run of the Country" tells of the coming of age of a young Irish man, recently bereaved of his mother, living with his martinet father, and falling in love with a girl from the other Ireland. A solid production on most counts, the film delivers too little too late in story making for a meandering watch lacking cohesion. Okay fodder for sentimentalists best saved for tv. (C-)

This is both a coming-of-age movie and a fine picture of how the border between the Irish Republic and the Six Counties, and the ancient animosities of the place, become part of the landscape. There are no green plastic derbies or fuzzy pipecleaner shamrocks in this funny, touching and gritty portrait of a family, a young couple and a nation each torn in two. Finney's police officer is a man who believes in the system even when it clearly doesn't work, not an unknown type on that island, while the quirky, iconoclastic young farmer who takes our lad in hand shows much better than "Sins of the Father" how clever young men with good hearts find places a better world would keep them out of. As for the romance, well, watch the movie. It's very much well worth it. But it's a real world you'll find here, not "Finian's Rainbow," so don't expect to walk away with a cheerful Irish song on your lips.