Strong Characters Drive the Ironic ‘Trojan Eddie’

Irish actor Stephen Rea has spent his career doing the improbable: dominating films while playing the hapless, hopeless or feckless, a bemused husband in “Bad Behavior,” a conflicted cop in “Michael Collins,” a thoroughly rattled IRA soldier in “The Crying Game.”

His characters are satellites, moons, offshore operations, never quite the center of attention. And yet, even though Rea eschews the often theatrical edginess of our more prominent actors and blessedly lacks the tranquilizing effect of our major stars, he’s been memorable in everything he’s done.

His streak continues in “Trojan Eddie,” an ironic Irish drama directed by Gillies MacKinnon of “The Playboys” and last year’s well-received Scottish film “Small Faces.”

Rea’s title character, a low-level hustler who sells goods of dubious origin (transported in a Trojan van, whatever that is), is trying to realize his dream of self-employment, a stable home for his two daughters, some kind of detente with his philandering wife, Shirley (Angeline Ball of “The Commitments”), financial security and peace of mind. But, in keeping with Rea’s M.O., it’s not Eddie around whom this rural Irish community revolves.

That honor goes to John Power (Richard Harris), the leader of the local Travelers (Irish gypsies), who doesn’t get around much anymore. He has a big car, a big house and a number of thriving business interests. Power reigns over all he surveys through his own brutality--and few are better than Harris in communicating barely controlled rage--and the help of his thuggish son, Ginger (Brendan Gleeson). Eddie, no Traveler himself, is viewed by them with contempt and suspicion, although he’s a marvelous salesman. (And the thing he sells best is Eddie.)

In intelligent, understated fashion, MacKinnon transmutes Billy Roche’s script into a world of Celtic Corleones, a feudal construct in which law equals strength and people are for sale. When Power becomes infatuated with a beautiful young Traveler girl named Kathleen (Aislin McGuckin), who reminds him of his late wife, he basically buys her. But it’s a marriage not just between May and December but between the 19th and late 20th centuries. After a wedding that MacKinnon invests with all the joy of a funeral, the fox-eyed Kathleen absconds with the 11,000-pound marriage purse and Eddie’s sidekick, Dermot.

This presents problems for Eddie, of course, and Rea, with his air of profound resignation, is an enigmatic and captivating figure. But so is Harris, who, when his mouth is slightly ajar and he’s staring into the abyss of age, can make his shadowed, life-scarred face a thing of terrible beauty. His Power comes to the late realization that he’s made an ass of himself; every laugh he hears becomes a laugh at him, any affront a capital offense. He’s volatility personified.

Eddie, torn between his quixotic love for Shirley and a stable life with the far more worthy Betty (Brid Brennan), sees in all this romantic mayhem a chance for himself. The resolution is something of a twist, although character rather than plot is the strong suit of “Trojan Eddie.” MacKinnon mixes a gritty milieu with the subtleties of deception--and self-deception--in a place where the men look at the women with complete befuddlement, and the women see their men as broken promises. You wouldn’t want to live in this fractured Camelot, but it’s certainly an interesting place to visit.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: vulgarity, nudity, adult content, all themes inappropriate for children.

‘Trojan Eddie’

Stephen Rea: Trojan Eddie

Richard Harris: John Power

Stuart Townsend: Dermot

Aislin McGuckin: Kathleen

Angeline Ball: Shirley

Brid Brennan: Betty

Castle Hill Productions. Director Gillies MacKinnon. Producer Emma Burge. Co-producer Seamus Byrne. Screenplay Billy Roche. Photography John deBorman. Production designer Frank Conway. Music John Keane. Costumes Consolata Boyle. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

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