'Kill The Irishman' Trailer

Jonathan Hensleigh made a career writing films and then directed Thomas Jane in The Punisher (2004). Now he's done a feature with another Punisher actor: Ray Stevenson. Kill the Irishman adapts Rick Porrello's book To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia. It stars Mr. Stevenson and his wig as the Irishman of the title, who starts out working for the mob and then feels the mob's wrath when he strikes out on his own. Watch the trailer after the break.

I can't help but think of similar period gangster movies like Donnie Brasco and American Gangster when I see this trailer. (Not so much Goodfellas, despite the mobbed-up cast.) I like Ray Stevenson quite a lot, and it's nice to see Christopher Walken taking things seriously for a minute. Take away the very out of place song from the middle of this trailer and it might do a good job of presenting the film.

Also: Vincent D'Onofrio!

Kill the Irishman stars Ray Stevenson, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer, Steven R. Schirripa, Vincent D'Onofrio, Paul Sorvino, Robert Davi, Vinnie Jones and Laura Ramsey.

It opens limited on March 11, 2011.

Over the summer of 1976, thirty-six bombs detonate in the heart of Cleveland while a turf war raged between Irish mobster Danny Greene and the Italian mafia. Turning the tables on loan shark Shondor Birns and allying himself with gangster John Nardi, Greene stops taking orders from the mafia and pursues his own power. Surviving countless assassination attempts from the mob and killing off anyone who went after him in retaliation, Danny Greene's infamous invincibility and notorious fearlessness eventually led to the collapse of mafia syndicates across the U.S. and also earned him the status of the man the mob couldn't kill.