Well Deserved Praise

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

That's the perfect example of what the independent movie industry may give from time to time. And since a decade now, we often see such kind of films, sort of mix up of documentary dramas, describing petty hoodlumsliving in their districts. In the most realistic way. No heroes here. There are tons of those films. Some atmosphere here reminds me James Gray's features, like LITTLE ODESSA and THE YARDS. And also Phil Joanou's STATE OF GRACE. But these are only a few examples. I prefer that to the big Hollywood blockbusters. Pure crap for me, with their damned superheroes. I also noticed that the director Ted Demme passed away in 2002. Such a shame, this movie maker seemed gifted and he probably could have given us more inventive and powerful crime dramas like this one.

what can i say,I'm a born & raised Boston boy.I'm from the opposite side of the city from where this film takes place. the area, Charleston dose have a code of silence cloaking the hoods.similar to the way the southie-OC projects feel,eve after the winter hill gang has become less visible.i don't live in Boston anymore,but i remember home vividly.i caught monument ave in the theater,in Copley sq.-Boston when it came into the theaters.riveted the the screen i was.the lifestyle the local hooligan lives is not one of irresponsibility.all his action are seen,maybe not by law enforcement.but by other hoods.they live with many vices,expensive booze-hard drugs & cheap women.and the nice girls they find usually get hurt. a criminals code of conduct is the standard they live by,and its always evolving to meet the situation.friends become foe's. the misguided become martyrs. and life go's on.watch this film,and understand that this is how many men live their life.

From the current FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, we have a paralleling movie. As I write this, the Boston Police Dept., State Police and FBI stand indicted as co-conspirators in keeping Whitey Bulger out of the hands of the law. In Charlestown, the code of silence is slowly being broken as more Irish wake up to the fact that mobsterism is for the 'boids'. Yet this movie really awakens you to how insidious the silly hi-jinks of youth (e.g., causing all the car alarms on the street to go off at one time) can really be. These kids then move on up into guilt by association, and slowly get rubbed out by the head mobster they have admired, and who even has the gall to pay for the funerals of those he kills/has killed. It's going on right now, folks, right here in Boston....but just not as much.When the facts are in about Whitey Bulger, No. 1 guy on the FBI's most wanted , whose brother is chancellor of the Univ. of Ma. and formerly president of the Ma. Senate, you'll see a lot more parallels from this movie. The only logic test it failed was, "How could those parents NOT know their son and his buddies were sniffing coke in their home?" This show is ALMOST a documentary of current life in south Boston. As someone with Scotch-Irish ancestry, I think of the Raytheon engineer whose mother took her husband's life insurance and moved to Stoughton from this Irish ghetto ....and marvel at his escape from the degraded lives portrayed here. See it. Take your teen-age kids to see it. Better than Sunday school.

Not many people probably know this, but Ted Demme actually rented out a theatre in LA and had a weekend of free screenings for this film just so people would go to see it. That's a testament to the filmmaker as well as his film. I think Monument Avenue is Demme's stab at Cassavettes and Scorcese and quite a succesful one. Outside of STATE OF GRACE, I don't think I've seen any other Irish 'mafia' films (pardon the classification). You won't find Dennis Leary any better...and for God's sake please take note of the always great Ian Hart, Colm Meany and the bombshell waiting to go off Famke Jansen. Too bad Demme has to make his bread and butter with such mediocre fare as LIFE instead of films like this and BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. He's obviously an actor's director.