Puckoon (2002)

Spike Milligan's book about the divided Irish village of Puckoon comes to the big screen.

Director:

Terence Ryan

Writers:

Susan Morrall (screenplay), Spike Milligan (novel)

Stars:

Sean Hughes, Elliott Gould, Daragh O'Malley

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sean Hughes	...	Dan Madigan
Elliott Gould	...	Dr. Goldstein
Daragh O'Malley	...	Father Rudden
John Lynch	...	O'Brien
Griff Rhys Jones	...	Col. Stokes
Nickolas Grace	...	Foggerty
B.J. Hogg	...	Rafferty
David Kelly	...	O'Toole
Milo O'Shea	...	Sgt. McGillikuddie
Freddie Jones	...	Sir John Meredith
Richard Rickings	...	Alex Walker
Richard Attenborough	...	Writer-Director
Marc Sinden	...	The surveyor
Frankie McCafferty	...	Lenny
Conor Mullen	...	Shamus

Storyline

Puckoon is a wee Irish village that gets caught up in an argument about where the border separating Northern Ireland from Ireland should be. Keen to get the matter sorted before the pubs close, a random borderline is wrestled on the map of the Emerald Isle and Puckoon gets divided as well, literally. As the barbed wire fences and Army checkpoints go up overnight, suddenly people cannot get to their outhouses or walk from one side of the street to the other. It has some advantages, everyone squeezes into the tiniest corner of the pub because it is in Northern Ireland territory where the beer is cheaper, but worst of all, is the church and its graveyard. Now the newly deceased need a valid passport, renewable every year, if they want to be buried "across the border". A plan is hatched to return the newly dead back to Ireland. At the same time, a plan is hatched to smuggle explosives in coffins to Northern Ireland with, as they say, hilarious results.

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Plot Keywords:

ireland | border | coffin | church | rural setting | 

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Taglines:

Knowing where to draw the line

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Genres:

Comedy

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Richard Attenborough (Writer-Director) previously directed Elliott Gould in A Bridge Too Far (1977).

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Quotes

Dan Madigan: Good God, what are these?
Writer-Director: Legs.
Dan Madigan: Legs? Legs? Whose legs?
Writer-Director: Your legs.
Dan Madigan: Mine? Did you write these legs?
Writer-Director: I did, yes.
Dan Madigan: Well I don't like them. I don't like them at all. I could have writed better legs meself. Did you write your legs?
Writer-Director: Uh, no.
Dan Madigan: Ah, so you got somebody else to write your legs. Somebody who's good at leg writing. It's a diabolical liberty letting loose some untrained leg writer on an unsuspecting human being like me!

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Crazy Credits

No animals or humans were hurt in the production of this movie with the exception of Benjamin Sloan the Production Trainee whose feelings were slightly hurt on one occasion.

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Soundtracks

Sunrise
Written by Neil Hannon
[from the Setanta album "Fin de Siecle"]

User Reviews

fast paced mesmerizing comedy with a cleverly constructed script

At last Puckoon has been made into a wonderful, mesmerizing film. This is a film that every Milligan fan will want to see many times, if just to catch everything that happens in each scene. The script has cleverly constructed in layers, the surface being the fast paced comedy and the deeper layers showing what happens to ordinary people, like the villagers of Puckoon, when their country is suddenly and arbitrarily divided

Details

Official Sites:

Official site cast photos, trailer, reviews [UK]

Country:

Ireland UK Germany

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 April 2003 (Ireland)

Also Known As:

Határvillongások

Filming Locations:

Ballywater Park, County Down, Northern Ireland, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bórd Scannán na hÉireann, Distinguished Features, Insight Ventures Limited

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1