Ash Wednesday so titled because the action takes place on that day of repentance in the Catholic faith and into Lent. Leading character Edward Burns who directed as well keeps the ash cross on his forehead until almost the end of the film. Almost as if he was looking for protection. He and brother Elijah Wood sure needed it.They play the Sullivan brothers at one time sons of a prominent Irish mobster. Seems as though the Wood killed a pair of Italian hoodlums and their relations are looking for payback.Burns and local priest James Handy have created a fiction that Wood is dead and spirited him out of town where he's lived in Texas for 3 years. Now Wood is back to get his wife Rosario Dawson who has thought her husband was dead, part of the plan to make the death story believable.Burns is well out of the rackets, but in his effort to protect his brother he's being dragged back in. Wood doesn't make it easy for him either.Ash Wednesday is a nice if cheaply made film about family loyalty and sacrifice in a working class Irish American family. Note that this is set in the early 80s when Hell's Kitchen still had some working class blocks. It's pretty yuppified now, so Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood stands in. This was the same setting for the Sean Connery/Dustin Hoffman/Matthew Broderick film Family Business which was done in the late 80s and also about family as well.The characters are well drawn with no stereotyping at all. James Handy is not a typical priest by any means. No comparison to him and Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in another film which also was set in Hell's Kitchen when it really was Irish working class.Burns and Wood have good chemistry as brothers. Ash Wednesday has some fine characterizations done by some talented players.

Recap: Sean is working in a bar in Hell's Kitchen and suddenly hears three men by the bar planning to kill his older brother. Being the son of a known gangster he feels that he has only one option, kill the men. However, three dead men hardly goes unnoticed and some people want revenge. Best for Sean to disappear or he will end up dead. Or did he die? Now three years later people swears that they have seen him in his old neighborhood.Comments: This is a great drama. The movie gradually builds suspense like a bubble that must burst sometimes. That will keep you on the edge, because you won't want to miss it. You know that when the end comes, stuff is gonna happen (not gonna tell you what!).What keep popping up though is the cinematics, the angles and different shots. Burns, as both director and writer, has chosen to shoot scenes in some unusual but very spectacular ways. Through windows, in mirrors, with obstacles in the way. The composition of every scene and shot seems very well thought through and that elevates the entire experience to another level. If you enjoy stuff like that, you should definitely watch this.7/10

Edward Burns has done it again. This movie is so intricate in the plot you realize something new every time you watch it. Everything that is done is almost like a mirage of something else, it all means what it says and yet volumes more! The acting is mediocre, I do have to say that I've seen much better performances from all actors involved. But look past the acting, get into the story, the passion, the love between brother, the good and the evil of all situations. The photography in this movie is amazing. The usage of wide angle shots adds so much to the mood of this movie. Spend one time while watching this movie just to notice the complexity of the simple shots. And while your paying attention to the picture, absorb yourself in the music. You will be amazed!

After posting a review on this movie and then reading other postings, I finally figured out why the movie ended the way it did.In another posting, the reviewer was pointing out how dumb it was to put on a P-coat and cap of someone that every hit man would have their eyes open for. That's just asking to be killed. I believe Ed Burns' character figures that is the best way to end a lot of things - people looking for his brother, his own 'fall off the wagon' of going straight, and the affair with his brother's wife that he knew was a low thing to do, given the fact that she didn't know her husband was still alive. And being Catholic, to commit suicide is a mortal sin - one that prevents entry into heaven. Just let someone else kill him and his soul won't be eternally damned.Of course, this just opens things up for the younger brother to want to come back to seek revenge, and this movie fully demonstrates the futility of revenge upon revenge. I generally don't like to give too much details about movies so that other viewers can enjoy it and form their own opinions. However, the ending seems a little deeper (if somewhat wasteful) with my new found understanding, than just another killing in the vicious circle of revenge.