10.23.98 06:41:20
Strong acting makes for exciting moments on `Monument Ave.'

Monument Ave.
**** (out of five)

Starring Denis Leary, Jason Barry, Billy Crudup, John Diehl, Greg Dulli, Noah Emmerich, Ian Hart, Famke Janssen, Colm Meaney, Martin Sheen, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Marilyn Murphy Meardon. A Lions Gate Films release written by Mike Armstrong, directed by Ted Demme. At the Avon Cinema. Not rated, contains violence, profanity. Running time: 93 minutes.

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

Monument Ave., about a bunch of larcenous buddies of Irish descent from Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, is Boston's Federal Hill.

Like director Michael Corrente's ode to the wiseguys and tough-guy wannabes of Providence's fabled Italian-American neighborhood, Monument Ave. has the same gritty rough-and-tumble characters led by a young man who has begun to aspire to something beyond the shadow of the Bunker Hill Monument.

It has tight, real, unnerving performances by its small cast and some exciting moments built out of taut situations -- like the moment when the group's ringleader calls the bluff of a racist pal by ordering members to pull a lone black man walking down a darkened street into their car and threaten him with a gun.

Despite a nail-bitingly fast opening sequence of a chase through Boston streets, director Ted Demme (Beautiful Girls, The Ref) is otherwise a little slow in the action department at the beginning, as Monument Ave. introduces us to a wide array of characters with little information about their mutual relationships. It doesn't help that some of them have difficult accents. But stick with the film and you'll be rewarded with a slice-of-life payoff that's both unexpected and satisfying.

Denis Leary continues his attempt -- magnificently here -- to get past his standup comedy roots as Bobby O'Grady, ringleader of a bunch just-outside-the-law wiseguy friends.

When we meet him, Bobby's in a race with his buddy, Mouse (Ian Hart), to see who can steal a car fastest and get it back to the chop-shop first. Their pals include Seamus (Jason Barry), Bobby's naive cousin who has come over from Ireland in search of a better life and instead finds himself caught up in shenanigans he's uncomfortable with; the bigoted Red (Noah Emmerich), who expels a lot of hot air about wanting to keep Charlestown white; and Digger (John Diehl), the taxi driver who ferries them in his cab to robbery locations.

Their larcenous lives are presided over by Jackie (Colm Meaney), who tries to control everything with the suave appearance of a city councilman. Jackie doesn't realize that Bobby has been having an affair with his girlfriend (Famke Janssen), although she is aware that Bobby is starting to look at other possibilities both in women and in a future beyond Charlestown.

It's quite a stew of emotions. These guys are 33 years old, but still hanging around streetcorners like 17-year-olds, still trying to find a high from a mix of cocaine and booze, still trying to make it with women with whom they exhibit much bravado to mask uncomfortability.

Martin Sheen plays a Boston police detective who keeps turning up on the fringes to bedevil Bobby and his pals, as though he were their personal watchdog.

Just when it seems that Emerson College grad Mike Armstrong's script for Monument Ave. is going to sink into kitchen-sink melodrama, however, a shocking murder occurs and the film quickly moves into a gallop as Bobby begins reassessing his life and future. There are more murders, too, as Bobby realizes he's walking down a one-way street to oblivion, just like all the friends in trouble with the law who have preceded him.

Leary brings a lot of raw energy to Bobby as a tortured soul searching for answers and a way out. Demme makes good use of childhood photos of gentler times among the friends, rather than straight-out flashbacks, to show us what these guys were like in more innocent days and how they could have become just like every other kid who played cowboy in a back yard.

The actors backing Leary are strong and believable, especially Providence-based Marilyn Murphy Meardon as Bobby's mother. She only has a few brief scenes, but her anguish and anger at her son and his lifestyle make for some of the film's most grippingly emotional moments.

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