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At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This film is a blatant rip-off of Bud Schulberg and Elia Kazan's 1954 On the Waterfront. Dennis Leary was in on the writing. He has the lead part.Billy Crudup plays a brief part. Until he's murdered by the Mick Gang Boss who fear he might sing. Shades of Jimmy Doyle.I can see Johnny Friendly, the cops that dog the Irish guys, who are stand-ins for Terry Molloy.I'm not sure they bother with the Irish priest of Karl Malden.There's no Charlie the Gent. There's no girlfriend Edie.But for Edie, there's a couple of cute and nice-looking girls, but Leary's only interested in one of them. At first.There's no waterfront and no pigeons in a coop on the roof.This On the Waterfront has been transposed to Irish Boston. The Irish in question are recent immigrants and first generation people.I get to see parts of Boyleston Street, Beacon Hill and some gritty barrooms that remind me of that Hells Kitchen picture some years ago set near the Five Points in New York, with Sean Penn.The greenish cinematography reminds one of Ford's the Quiet Man.The writing is derivative of the original. Leary and co-author never come up with a single riveting scene. They're not equipped for that.I'm watching a stick-ball hockey scene right after the murder. Leary's toying with Jackie in vague revenge for the murder. When Jackie calls him on it, Leary can't let himself have the showdown so he equivocates with something about doubling a bet.The whole thing backfires on Leary's character. Its the moral equivalent of Terry setting Jimmy Doyle up for his fall off the roof. Leary has backed down to the the gang boss. He winds up taking it out on his girlfriend instead.Bobby O'Grady (Leary) tries to dump Katy for a new classier preppy girl. The classier girl is the other half of Edie Doyle, Jimmy Doyle's sister. Leary's gang of 40 year old 'teenagers' are having trouble getting past the idea of the murder of their cousin.The Mick Boston cops are trying to get one of the O'Grady cousins to crack and finger their cousin's murderer. He's a Mick too, played by Martin Sheen as Officer Hanlon. Now I see where they've parked Karl Malden's priest character. He's in Sheen's Hanlon. Waterfront had two cops, Martin Balsam and Leif Erickson. Only one cop here, but he's got Karl Malden's priest inside him.Leary keeps trying to figure out where he stands morally. Its obvious to the Audience. We've all seen the real On the Waterfront. Then Jackie the gang boss kills another O'Grady. Leary has it figured out now. Unless he does something, he's gonna be next.Nice pat ending. A little bit too pat. Kazan, Schulberg, Charlie the Gent., they couldn't have approved. I can't either. And the boss Jackie would have preferred the fate of Johnny Friendly.

Ted Demme is a director with a lot of fans, but most of them know him only for one of his films (Blow, Beautiful girls or this Snitch). I think there is nobody who loves his entire work and that's because every movie is different and they have not much contact points among them. Snitch (or whatever is the real title) is a good movie, but it has a tiny problem: you know what is to happen, unavoidably. A group of Irish living in the typical neighborhood where a man makes the rules. Everything goes ahead and never changes. The only possible change comes when someone in the group feels that his own world is falling apart and then... the end.There is no need to be a genius to know what comes later, because we have seen it many, many times. But there is a single thing that makes this movie different (and that's why I am writing about it): the cast. The real Irish origin of most of the actors makes the movie specially realistic. That accent that is almost impossible to understand and that way of walking and even of drinking is really well filmed by Ted Demme. For once, you can believe you are between a group of Irish that have not found a place in the United States. The film doesn't pretend to be critic with the political system, because it shows just a small neighborhood where even the policemen are Irish. The way of filming Snitch makes us to think that all the characters are living in a kind of prison and they can't leave it but dead. No one moves from those dirty and dark streets.Both things (actors and filming) are really different from other films about the same topic. The problem is that nobody is to pay much attention to this movie, because the story is too much typical. At the moment, in Spain it has been almost unnoticed.

Dennis Leary is really great in this movie. I was surprised to see him do such a convincing job. The movie seems kind of unfinished, and a slightly bigger budget probably would have helped. A little too much of the f-word in some seems. Still it was entertaining and touching. And Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs was really cool as coke-dealer/hitman Shang.

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.