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

"The Run of the Country" fulfills the early-to-mid-20th Century rural mannerism of class, character, and personal struggle after a series of dashed hopes during a passage of life. Disney's old hero worship lingers well in this flick, which in turns hits that image with reality. How a young man becomes a man happens in many ways and this film portrays the farm lad derivative. Boy lives a sad reality, boy thinks he has found solace from sad reality, sad reality returns the rebuff, boy returns to sad reality, and boy pursues new venture despite the sting of sad reality.I liked the mode and standing of the storyline to this film, reading like an old novel one would read from the archives or see in a soap opera drama/adventure. I watched the film like I would any paperback-novel-turned-film but when Victoria Smurfit popped up, I took better notice because I had the sensual hot spot for her since "Ballykissangel" when she replaced my previous interest Dervla Kerwin. The unsung natural beauty was the right filler for Annagh...and call me a pervert for this but to finally see Victoria Smurfit nude after imagining it from only two provocative scenes from "Ballykissangel" fulfilled an old dream, the fulfillment of which gave me reason to pursue viewing the rest of the movie. Much like "Little House on the Prairie" was in the 70's, this Irish variation of a "Little House" 2-part episode is specifically meant for those with the soft heart for country life and times, good and bad, with the specter of then-modern Ireland working into the fabric of the story.

The movie was powerful enough to help me realize I was in love. It defined the boundaries between romance, lust, affection, and love. Placed in the heart of the Irish countryside, "Run of the Country" explored the clash between a tradition-based generation and its modern offspring on subjects as delicate as love, sex, marriage, and family. Ultimately, if you're lucky enough to be in love with an Irish, you'll know exactly why.

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.