Have you ever heard of Danny Greene? One time, some guys tried to blow up his car. He dismantled the bomb and turned the blasting caps in to an acquaintance in the Cleveland Police Department. When the officer asked where the actual explosives were, Danny said, “Those are going back to the son of a b**** who sent them to me.”

Any questions?

Jonathan Hensleigh’s “Kill the Irishman” packs so many stories just like that one into two hours that it’s easy to forget that this flick is based on true events. Danny Greene, a blue collar Irish-American, worked his way up the Cleveland chapter of the International Longshoreman’s Association and then into local Italian mob operations. Like many such biopics, there were a few facts here and there that were fudged to make the story flow better on screen, but Danny’s own exploits didn’t get that treatment. They didn’t need it. This man, who spent virtually every moment of his life in and around Cleveland, Ohio, and considered himself a Celtic warrior, led one amazing life. And Ray Stevenson plays him pitch perfect.

S'right.

Stevenson leads an outstanding cast of several well-knowns (Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer, Vincent D’Onofrio) and a flock of top notch character actors (Linda Cardellini, Bob Gunton, Tony Lo Bianco, plus a few surprises) in this story that pretends to be the biography of one man, but is actually the chronicle of a fascinating chapter in the history of American organized crime. If you don’t know much about the crime scene in Cleveland in the mid 70′s, you’re in for some jaw dropping revelations throughout. Do yourself a favor and refrain from reading up on it beforehand. It’s well worth the wait.

As for Greene himself, you’ll be hard pressed not to like the charismatic Irishman. The so-called Robin Hood of Collinwood, Greene did more for his community than most legit citizens dream of. From donating food to struggling families to coaching youth baseball, Danny was as well loved by the local populace as he was hated by the local mobsters who tried so many times to kill him. That story about the blasting caps? That’s not even in the movie. I pulled that out of my own research. I didn’t want to ruin any of the larger-than-life events of Greene’s interactions with the mob, the guys that he actually had a good relationship with for many years before they put a $25,000 contract out on him. (That’s no spoiler. Look at the title.)

This flick could have used one more run through the editing bay. The narration is tired carbon copy from too many biopics (“Danny Greene grew up in Cleveland where he was always getting into trouble…”). The fact that Greene was a long standing civilian informant (read: snitch) for the FBI only gets a very short, very awkward mention early on and is never mentioned again, prompting me to think that there was a side plot left on the cutting room floor. But these short-comings are easy to overlook, especially on the repeated viewings that Kill the Irishman deserves.