If "White Irish Drinkers" is based, at least in part, on the boyhood of writer-director John Gray, it certainly was a miserable childhood. But it should have been a better movie. Unfortunately, we get awful cliches and sentimental claptrap. Dad beats Mom and bullies his children. Mom defends Dad ("I married him for better and for worse," is one of her better lines.)
Danny, the elder brother, beats Brian, the younger, tries to enlist him in a chosen profession of burglary. Brian escapes to the basement and paints.
Set in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, in the 1970s, the film involves a lot of choices, a lot of conflict, a lot of bullying and ethnic hate. Friends of Danny and Brian think ther best job in the world is in the New York Sanitation Department, or as a subway trainman. or anything else with civil service protection. Anyone who even talks about college is ridiculed and harrassed, his sexual attitudes profanely described.
This makes it especially difficult for Brian (Nick Thurston), who has natural talent as an artist and is eager for a college education. He also has a job, working for Whitey (Peter Riegert) in a neighborhood movie theater. Whitey sets up a one-night-only visit from the Rolling Stones. Danny (Geoff Wigdor) sees a big, easy robbery.
White Irish Drinkers opens today
—Joe