No generalisations please

"The General" (15) Nationwide There is, nowadays, a prevalent tendency in the media to pounce upon films depicting the experiences of controversial real-life characters, and to take them apart - usually before anyone has seen the film in question and sometimes even before the movie is made.

The incessant attacks on Neil Jordan's Michael Collins, for example, began well before the film went into production and persisted over a year until it was ready for release, and a great deal of that disparagement came from commentators who had not seen the film. A small few had the good grace to withdraw their objections when they eventually got to see Jordan's film.

Similarly, the debate surrounding John Boorman's film about the notorious Dublin criminal, Martin Cahill, has been spun out for the past 12 months, orchestrated largely by those who have not seen the film. What is it about movies that inspires such passionate vilification? And why was there no comparable fluster when the source material for Boorman's screenplay, Paul Williams's detailed book, The General, was published three years ago and became a best-seller here? Perhaps the answer is as simple and cynical as the media's perception of movies as sexy copy, tailor-made to fill holes on a page or a radio or television show.

One valid point raised in the cacophony of criticism against The General is the impact it might have on Martin Cahill's victims who are still alive today, such as Dr James Donovan, a forensic scientist who continues to suffer from the terrible injuries caused when Cahill planted a bomb in his car to prevent him testifying against him. The film depicts the bombing of the car, but it goes on to emphasise the courage, integrity and moral probity of Dr Donovan, who is shown to view Cahill with the contempt he deserves and to be doggedly determined to testify against Cahill in court. It is Dr Donovan who commands the admiration of the viewer here, not Martin Cahill.

John Boorman's film is a thoughtful, compelling and ultimately responsible picture in its warts-and-all view of its subject. It begins at the end, in Ranelagh in August 1994, with the daylight murder of Cahill by a lone gunman. Shaped from there on as one extended flashback, the film charts Cahill's impoverished upbringing and his early teenage dabbling in crime, when he is played by Eamonn Owens, who starred in The Butcher Boy.

Brendan Gleeson takes over the role of Cahill as an adult when his sheer obstinacy and utter disrespect for authority is illustrated as he refuses to budge until he is comfortably re-housed after his corporation estate home is demolished.

In his compression of Cahill's 46 years into two hours of screen time, Boorman demonstrates Cahill's mischievous sense of humour, running rings around a mostly unarmed Garda force; his caring attitude to his wife and sister-in-law, with whom he had a most unorthodox menage a trois; his reconstruction of himself as some kind of modern-day Robin Hood dispensing stolen goods to those who claim to be needy; his love for racing pigeons; his eschewal of drink and drugs. And it presents him as a criminal who dares to take on elaborate heists on a jewellery firm and on the Alfred Beit art collection at Russborough House, both of which had been deemed impregnable by the IRA.

Simultaneously, The General does not flinch from dramatising Cahill's ruthlessness and propensity for menace and violence: setting a bomb under the bonnet of Dr Donovan's car; stealing into the bedroom of a witness and intimidating her; knee-capping a gang member who has raped his own daughter, to keep the man out of court; and crucifying another gangster, whom he wrongly believes has swindled him, on a pool table.

Dismissals of the film as a venal commercial exercise are entirely undermined by John Boorman's risk-taking decision to make The General in black-and-white, against considerable resistance from prospective international distributors. Superbly photographed by Seamus Deasy, those monochrome images and a terrific jazz-based score by Richie Buckley enhance the film's evocation of the classic gangster movies which are its cinematic antecedents.

At the film's centre is a towering performance by Brendan Gleeson, who continues to go from strength to strength, and the exemplary supporting cast notably features Maria Doyle Kennedy and Angeline Ball as the women in Cahill's life; Adrian Dunbar, Sean McGinley and Eanna McLiam as key gang members; and the only non-Irish actor involved, Jon Voight returning to form as Cahill's soft-spoken but zealous nemesis in the Garda.

The General is very much Boorman's best film since his autobiographical Hope And Glory 11 years ago, and he well merited the best director award he received for it in Cannes last Sunday night.