Tommy O'Neill Movies
- 1999
Based on the first of Dorothy Gilman's popular novels about a senior citizen who joins the CIA, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax stars Angela Lansbury as Emily Polifax, an elderly woman who feels out of sorts and unsure of what to do with herself after the death of her husband. Her doctor tries to cheer her up by telling her this is a perfect time to try new things and fulfill ambitions set aside earlier in life. Emily decides this is fine advice and takes a shot at the career of her dreams -- she writes a letter to her congressman asking how one goes about becoming a CIA agent. The letter is passed along and the CIA agrees to an interview. However, Emily is mistakenly sent on a mission to Morocco before anyone realizes she isn't actually an agent, and operative Jack Farrell (Thomas Ian Griffith) is sent out to keep an eye on her. When Emily and Jack are unexpectedly taken hostage, Jack discovers Mrs. Pollifax is far more clever and resourceful than anyone expected. The first in a proposed series of TV movies aimed to appeal to the large and loyal audience Lansbury attracted with the show Murder, She Wrote, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax was produced for CBS television, who first aired it in May 1999. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angela Lansbury, Thomas Ian Griffith, (more)
John Boorman, who won the 1998 Cannes Film Festival's Direction award for this film, previously won the same Cannes award almost three decades earlier for his Leo the Last (1969) about an alienated aristocrat in a London slum. Shot in widescreen color (but printed in sharp black-and-white), The General is a biographical portrait of ruthless Irish crime lord Martin Cahill, shot down outside his home by a single assassin on August 18, 1994. After this opening, the film then unfolds as a lengthy flashback of the events that led to his death, sketching in the raw beginnings of the youthful Martin (Eamonn Owens of The Butcher Boy) and moving into the Dublin slum of Hollyfield to show the adult Cahill (Brendan Gleeson) and his link to a local cop, Inspector Ned Kenny (Jon Voight). Various thefts enable Cahill to support his wife Frances (Maria Doyle Kennedy), his four children, and his sister-in-law Tina (Angeline Ball). As the years pass, Cahill rises as a mobster, bamboozling cops, constructing airtight alibis, pulling off a near-impossible jewel heist, and setting up a menage a trois with Frances and Tina. (Both actresses were seen previously in Alan Parker's The Commitments). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brendan Gleeson, Adrian Dunbar, (more)
