Karl Shiels Movies

Their tenth wedding anniversary rapidly approaching, a husband and wife from a small provincial town are forced to face the the fact that their marriage is in serious danger of dissolving in director Declan Recks' adaptation of Eugene O'Brien's deeply introspective stage play. Billy (Aidan Kelly) and Breda (Eileen Walsh) have been married for nearly a decade, and lately their relationship has taken on an air of suffocating monotony. They have two children together, though it would seem that starting a family has pushed them each further apart as opposed to bringing them closer together. Most nights, Billy can be found at the local pub, knocking drinks back with his buddies as Breda languishes in front of the television with the children. As Billy clings to both the bottle and his reputation as a local hero (he once saved a small child from drowning in the river) while getting lost in fantasies about an attractive younger woman, Breda does her best to remain optimistic about the future. She sees their upcoming anniversary as an ideal opportunity for them to start focusing on ways of improving their bleak situation, but as the big day draws near, Billy's and Breda's disparate desires begin to come into focus not just for each other, but themselves as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A recently released ex-con whose gambling problem previously landed him behind bars forms a close-knit bond with a guarded illegal immigrant in Irish director Liam O. Mochain's entry into the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival. Having skimmed from the till of the family bar a few times too often, Jack Watts was eventually reported to the police by his father. Upon being released Jack is informed that if he wishes to get back in the good graces of his family, he can take the position of toilet attendant until his debts are paid off and he has proven himself trustworthy. In the meantime, ladies' restroom toilet attendant Katya will show Jack the ropes. While Jack feels trapped in his job do to his lingering family debts, Katya's options are likewise limited due to her status as an illegal immigrant. In Katya's experiences, everyone who has ever shown her any modicum of respect has done so out of purely selfish motivations. But Jack is different, and over the course of the next few weeks these two lost souls will both discover that the factors that bond them together far outnumber the differences that would push them apart. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joel Schumacher take on the real-life story of an assassinated Irish journalist in the dramatic thriller Veronica Guerin. Cate Blanchett appears as the title character, a relentless crime reporter for The Sunday Independent during the early '90s. Guerin's violent murder in 1996 led to a revision of Ireland's laws and the creation of the Criminal Assets Bureau. The movie picks up with her pursuit of the underground drug trade in Dublin, which she suspects is led by mobster Martin "The General" Cahill (Gerry O'Brien). When Cahill's gang is attacked, she suspects mobster Gerry "The Monk" Hutch (Alan Devine) is responsible. Not deterred by threats or gunshot wounds, she uses thug John Traynor (Ciarán Hinds) as an informer to help out her investigation of psychotic mobster John Gilligan (Gerard McSorley). Schumacher's protégé Colin Farell appears in a small role. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide