Review: “What Means Motley?”
Last week I had a chance to see “What Means Motley?” which showed at the recent Kansas International Film Festival. The following is a review I wrote especially for the current issue of Midwest Irish Focus which is available now FREE at your favourite Irish location.
What Means Motley? is an Irish-made comedy (and Romanian and British), a caper, that takes a true incident in Ireland’s recent history and speculates on how it may have happened.
In the late 1990s tens of thousands of Romanian economic migrants arrived in Ireland. Despite the apparent popularity of Irish people in helping, and even adopting, Romanian orphans following the fall of Ceau?escu, Romanian immigrants in Ireland were instantly the victims of prejudice and discrimination not unlike earlier generations of the Irish themselves. I left Ireland and moved to the Midwest in 1999, when Romanians on the streets of Dublin where held in common disregard, even though to my eyes they reminded me of Irish on the streets of New York or London.
At this time Barry Mulligan lived in Bucharest and as honorary consul handled visa requests for the Irish Government. Moved by the treatment of Romanians in Ireland, Mulligan co-wrote the movie What Means Motley? to illustrate what motivated the people of Romania to try and get into Ireland - or more correctly to leave Romania.
The story Mulligan tells is of a visa scam, under his consulate nose, in 1999. Most amazingly of all is that Mulligan himself stars in the movie, as the main character trying to pull off the scam to get Romanians into Ireland, and make money in the process.
Most articles on the movie start by telling you how the film ends. You should know that Ireland is not the setting for this movie; it is the punchline. What Means Motley? It means the Romanians will fit right into Ireland should they get there.
The movie is a film of two halves. The first shows why people might be motivated to leave crime-ridden Romania and move to Ireland, and the second concerns the planning and organizing of the scam. The General meets The Commitments, if you will.
What Means Motley? is definitely a funny movie, with some real laugh-out-loud moments, but it’s also somewhat offbeat and slow at times with long periods without laughs. It’s not that the jokes aren’t funny in these patches, but that there aren’t any. It’s in these moments that you warm to the main characters.
It’s beautifully shot, with some great cinematography, and the soundtrack is lively and apt. A lot of the first half however is shot almost MTV-style in music video vignettes, way too many for my liking as I found them rather tiresome.
The film is also interspersed with documentary-style post-scam interviews, which are affectionate tributes to the organizers, and a clever device to make us wonder about the end of the movie and beyond.
I spent a very short time in Romania in the 1990s and found it a most depressing place full of strange and threatening characters. What Means Motley? conveys what I remember very well with crooked police, frightening women, the Keystone Gypsies, and a French gangster oddball who in most movies would be played by Gary Oldman.
Despite the uneven pace of the film, and its underlying seriousness, it is light, funny, and entertaining, with only a couple of Oirish moments, but even some of the best Irish films suffer from that. Recommended.
“What Means Motley?” is currently showing on the festival circuit in Canada, the USA, and Australia, including on November 12 and 14 at the St Louis International Film Festival
See also:
• Guy’s Dog by Rory Bresnihan
• Ireland as England as seen on TV
• Rhys-Meyers, a Model Irish Actor
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