Monument Ave. (1998)

People are voting emotionally.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Monument Avenue is a familiar story that has been done before. However, this film really works due to the fine acting and directing. Ted Demme does an outstanding job developing the characters through his his long and sometimes drawn out dialogue scenes. The cast of Dennis Leary and Famke Janssen are extremely convincing and really make this film better than most of it's kind. Perhaps the small, almost cameo roles played by stars Billy Crudup, Martin Sheen and Jeanne Tripplehorn are what really make this film worth seeing. This is a perfect example of how good directing and acting can make a big difference on a common and somewhat predictable script.

From the current FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, we have a paralleling movie. As I write this, the Boston Police Dept., State Police and FBI stand indicted as co-conspirators in keeping Whitey Bulger out of the hands of the law. In Charlestown, the code of silence is slowly being broken as more Irish wake up to the fact that mobsterism is for the 'boids'. Yet this movie really awakens you to how insidious the silly hi-jinks of youth (e.g., causing all the car alarms on the street to go off at one time) can really be. These kids then move on up into guilt by association, and slowly get rubbed out by the head mobster they have admired, and who even has the gall to pay for the funerals of those he kills/has killed. It's going on right now, folks, right here in Boston....but just not as much.When the facts are in about Whitey Bulger, No. 1 guy on the FBI's most wanted , whose brother is chancellor of the Univ. of Ma. and formerly president of the Ma. Senate, you'll see a lot more parallels from this movie. The only logic test it failed was, "How could those parents NOT know their son and his buddies were sniffing coke in their home?" This show is ALMOST a documentary of current life in south Boston. As someone with Scotch-Irish ancestry, I think of the Raytheon engineer whose mother took her husband's life insurance and moved to Stoughton from this Irish ghetto ....and marvel at his escape from the degraded lives portrayed here. See it. Take your teen-age kids to see it. Better than Sunday school.

First off, I only got the movie because JASON BARRY was in it, he played Tommy Ryan in TITANIC,I was not sure if it would be good or not, but it was. Dennis Leary was amazing,as he usually he is,he was tough and caring all at the same time. He loved his cousin (Jason Barry-Seamus O'grady)very much,but he wanted to be a man,so he didn't show his love.

Not many people probably know this, but Ted Demme actually rented out a theatre in LA and had a weekend of free screenings for this film just so people would go to see it. That's a testament to the filmmaker as well as his film. I think Monument Avenue is Demme's stab at Cassavettes and Scorcese and quite a succesful one. Outside of STATE OF GRACE, I don't think I've seen any other Irish 'mafia' films (pardon the classification). You won't find Dennis Leary any better...and for God's sake please take note of the always great Ian Hart, Colm Meany and the bombshell waiting to go off Famke Jansen. Too bad Demme has to make his bread and butter with such mediocre fare as LIFE instead of films like this and BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. He's obviously an actor's director.