An Everlasting Piece

Last updated

An Everlasting Piece
Everylastingpiece.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Barry Levinson
Written by Barry McEvoy
Produced by Mark Johnson
Louis DiGiaimo
Jerome O'Connor
Barry Levinson
Paula Weinstein
StarringBarry McEvoy
Brían F. O'Byrne
Anna Friel
Billy Connolly
Edited by Stu Linder
Music by Hans Zimmer
Production
companies
Columbia Pictures
Bayahibe Films
Baltimore Spring/Creek Pictures
Distributed by DreamWorks Pictures (United States)
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International (International) [1]
Release date
  • December 25, 2000 (2000-12-25)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$14 million
Box office$75,228

An Everlasting Piece is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Barry Levinson, written by and starring Barry McEvoy. The plot involves two wig salesmen, one Catholic and one Protestant, who live in war-torn Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the mid-1980s. The supporting cast includes comedian Billy Connolly as a patient in a psychiatric hospital. McEvoy based the screenplay on the adventures of his father as a toupée peddler to both sides in the midst of the conflict. The movie was shot on location in both Belfast and Dublin.

Contents

Plot

Colm takes a job as a barber in a Belfast psychiatric hospital. He meets the staff and is warned against talking about poetry with George, a fellow barber. When he brings it up, George subjects him to his own poor work, but the pair chat anyway. Later, they meet an orderly escorting a new patient, whom he refers to as "The Scalper", described as the only seller of hair pieces in all of Northern Ireland until he had a nervous breakdown and scalped some of his own customers. Colm and George decide to meet with the Scalper to gain his list of customers; they intend to take over his former hairpiece monopoly. The Scalper agrees to give them the list.

Colm and George, calling themselves "The Piece People", embark on their plan to get rich. Colm's girlfriend Bronagh helps. She sets up their first appointment with a Mr Black, who eventually agrees to buy a hairpiece, although he denies having been a customer of "The Scalper". Bronagh had seen his picture in the newspaper (featured after he shot a Catholic) and, as he was bald, thought he'd be a good prospect. Having little success in sales, Colm and George discover they have competition from "Toupée or not Toupée", rivals who also acquired the client list. The supplier, "Wigs Of Wimbledon", decides to hold a meeting with two companies to inform them that the one who sells the most in a given time period will win an exclusive rights for all of Northern Ireland. The partners visit a farmer but lose the sale, learning that their competitors are underselling them. On a remote road, they are stopped by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), demanding to know what they are up to. This confrontation results in the partners selling a wig to the lead IRA man, who fails to notice it had been chewed by dogs.

The competition is raging, but the IRA man accidentally leaves the unique wig at the scene of a bombing. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) trace it to The Piece People. After being interrogated, George and Colm have a falling-out. Meanwhile, the IRA man who lost the wig tracks Colm down and demands Colm sell him his whole inventory because now every bald Catholic in Northern Ireland is a potential suspect for the police. Colm refuses as his business partner is a Protestant and thinks it would be unethical to protect the IRA because the sales would likely help The Piece People win the exclusive deal with Wigs Of Wimbledon.

Colm goes to a poetry reading by George, and the two make peace. With the help of Bronagh, the duo learn that many British Army soldiers in Northern Ireland are suffering from alopecia (hair loss) due to the stressful conditions, and secure a government contract to supply wigs to all soldiers who want them. With this, they win the competition and gain the rights to Northern Ireland.

Cast

Lawsuit against DreamWorks

In 2001, one of the film's producers, Jerome O'Connor, filed a $10 million lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan against Steven Spielberg's studio DreamWorks, the film's distributor. He complained that, although his film had received favorable reviews, the studio had reduced distribution from a projected 800 to eight theaters in the United States, and then pulled it from distribution. O'Connor alleged the film was "sabotaged" because director Barry Levinson would not change scenes to please British officials in its Foreign Office, which objected to its "sympathetic portrayal" of the IRA. O'Connor claimed DreamWorks officials feared the film might interfere with Steven Spielberg's attaining an honorary knighthood (which Spielberg received in January 2001). [2]

O'Connor argued that then Prime Minister Tony Blair had arranged for a loan of military equipment and 2,000 troops to Spielberg's production of Band of Brothers (TV miniseries) , which aired in 2001 on HBO, and that Spielberg gave Blair's son Euan a job in the production, indicating a quid pro quo. [2] A DreamWorks spokesman said the studio had not requested any film cuts. An Everlasting Piece was released on DVD, and the film, which had a $14,000,000 budget, earned $75,228. [2]

A decade after filing his lawsuit, a New York judge dismissed it in February 2011. O'Connor's counsel reserved the right to file an appeal, but ultimately did not file one. [3]

Reception

An Everlasting Piece received mixed reviews from critics and holds a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 43 reviews. The site's consensus states: "This comedy is too slight to leave an impression, and its attempts at whimsy are not as funny as they could have been." [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Quiet Man</i> 1952 film by John Ford

The Quiet Man is a 1952 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by John Ford. It stars John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond and Victor McLaglen. The screenplay by Frank S. Nugent was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story of the same name by Maurice Walsh, later published as part of a collection titled The Green Rushes. The film features Winton Hoch's lush photography of the Irish countryside and a long, climactic, semi-comic fist fight. It was an official selection of the 1952 Venice Film Festival.

<i>In the Name of the Father</i> (film) 1993 film by Jim Sheridan

In the Name of the Father is a 1993 biographical crime drama film co-written and directed by Jim Sheridan. It is based on the true story of the Guildford Four, four people falsely convicted of the 1974 Guildford pub bombings that killed four off-duty British soldiers and a civilian. The screenplay was adapted by Terry George and Jim Sheridan from the 1990 autobiography Proved Innocent: The Story of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four by Gerry Conlon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toupée</span> Hairpiece or partial wig of natural or synthetic hair

A toupée is a hairpiece or partial wig of natural or synthetic hair worn to cover partial baldness or for theatrical purposes. While toupées and hairpieces are typically associated with male wearers, some women also use hairpieces to lengthen existing hair, or cover a partially exposed scalp.

Events from the year 1992 in Ireland.

<i>The Long Good Friday</i> 1980 film directed by John Mackenzie

The Long Good Friday is a 1980 British gangster film directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barrie Keeffe, starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. Set in London, the storyline weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, including mid-level political and police corruption, and IRA fund-raising. The supporting cast features Eddie Constantine, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, Paul Freeman and Pierce Brosnan in his film debut.

<i>Monument Ave.</i> 1998 American film

Monument Ave., originally titled Snitch in the United States and titled Noose in Australia, is a 1998 American neo-noir crime film directed by Ted Demme and starring Denis Leary. The film also stars Famke Janssen, Martin Sheen, Ian Hart, and Lenny Clarke. Cam Neely also makes a brief appearance as a man returning home from work who finds his house has been broken into. The film takes place in Charlestown, Massachusetts and centers on small-time criminal Bobby O'Grady (Leary), who becomes conflicted due to Charlestown's code of silence. His loyalty and drive for self-preservation are tested, after two of his close family members are gunned down by their boss.

Barry McEvoy is a Northern Irish film actor/writer best known for writing and playing the lead in An Everlasting Piece (2000), directed by Barry Levinson. McEvoy's first screen appearance of note was in the supporting role of a gangster in Gloria (1999), filmed after he had spent a decade performing in Off Broadway plays in New York City. He appeared in Gettysburg (1993), Veronica Guerin (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), and Five Minutes of Heaven (2009).

<i>Five Minutes of Heaven</i> 2009 British film

Five Minutes of Heaven is a 2009 Irish film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a script by Guy Hibbert. The film was premiered on 19 January 2009 at the 25th Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award for Hirschbiegel, and the World Cinema Screenwriting Award for Hibbert. As a television film it was broadcast on BBC Two on 5 April 2009, and also had an international feature film release.

<i>Resurrection Man</i> (film) 1998 British film

Resurrection Man is a 1998 Irish extreme horror period drama film, set specifically in Northern Ireland, directed by Marc Evans with a screenplay written by Eoin McNamee based on his novel of the same name. The story is loosely based on the real-life "Shankill Butchers", an Ulster loyalist gang in 1970s Belfast who conducted random killings of Catholic civilians until their leader, Lenny Murphy, was assassinated by a Provisional IRA hit squad.

<i>The Fall</i> (TV series) Irish-British television series

The Fall is a crime drama television series filmed and set in Northern Ireland. The series, starring Gillian Anderson as Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, is created and written by Allan Cubitt and features Jamie Dornan as serial killer Paul Spector. It is produced by Artists Studio, and shown on RTÉ One in the Republic of Ireland and BBC Two in the UK.

<i>71</i> (film) 2014 film

'71 is a 2014 British thriller film written by Gregory Burke and directed by Yann Demange. Set in Northern Ireland, it stars Jack O'Connell, Sean Harris, David Wilmot, Richard Dormer, Paul Anderson and Charlie Murphy, and tells the fictional story of a British soldier who becomes separated from his unit during a riot in Belfast at the height of the Troubles in 1971. Filming began on location in Blackburn, Lancashire, in April 2013 and continued in Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool. The film was funded by the British Film Institute, Film4, Creative Scotland and Screen Yorkshire, and had its premiere in the competition section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, held in February 2014, where it was particularly praised for O'Connell's performance and Demange's direction.

<i>Song of the Sea</i> (2014 film) 2014 film

Song of the Sea is a 2014 animated fantasy film directed and co-produced by Tomm Moore, co-produced by Ross Murray, Paul Young, Stephen Roelants, Serge and Marc Ume, Isabelle Truc, Clement Calvet, Jeremie Fajner, Frederik Villumsen, and Claus Toksvig Kjaer, and written by Will Collins from Moore's story. An international co-production between the Republic of Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, France and Luxembourg, it is the second feature film by Cartoon Saloon. The film is the second installment in Moore's "Irish Folklore Trilogy", following his previous film The Secret of Kells (2009) and preceding the film Wolfwalkers (2020). It is also the only one to be set in contemporary times, as the previously mentioned two movies take place during the Middle Ages and the 17th century respectively.

<i>The Journey</i> (2016 film) 2016 film by Nick Hamm

The Journey is a 2016 drama film directed by Nick Hamm and written by Colin Bateman. The film is a fictional account of the true story of how political enemies Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness formed an unlikely political alliance. It stars Timothy Spall as Paisley and Colm Meaney as McGuinness, with Freddie Highmore, John Hurt, Toby Stephens, and Ian Beattie in supporting roles.

<i>A Belfast Story</i> 2013 film

A Belfast Story is a 2013 Irish crime film written and directed by Nathan Todd and starring Colm Meaney. It is Todd's directorial debut.

Shooting for Socrates is a 2014 Irish film co-written and directed by James Erskine and starting John Hannah, Richard Dormer and Sergio Mur as Brazilian footballer Sócrates.

<i>A Bump Along the Way</i> 2019 film

A Bump Along the Way is a 2019 Northern Irish comedy-drama film directed by Shelly Love.

<i>Unquiet Graves</i> 2018 film

Unquiet Graves: The Story of the Glenanne Gang is a 2018 documentary film about The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

<i>Boys from County Hell</i> 2020 film

Boys From County Hell is a 2020 vampire comedy horror film.

Dance First is an upcoming bio-pic of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, starring Gabriel Byrne as Beckett, directed by James Marsh, and written by Neil Forsyth. The film also features Fionn O'Shea as a younger Beckett and Aidan Gillen as James Joyce.

References

  1. "An Everlasting Piece (2000)". BBFC . Retrieved 26 March 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 Rush, George & Molloy, Joanna (9 February 2001). "Gossip: No 'piece', no justice, says suit". Daily News (New York). with Oggunnaike, Lola and Anderson, Kasia. Retrieved 13 January 2014.
  3. "Lawsuit against Spielberg tossed by NY judge", irishecho.com; accessed August 7, 2014.
  4. "An Everlasting Piece (2000)". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 26 May 2020.