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 | |
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B.J. Hogg | ... | Rafferty |
David Kelly | ... | O'Toole | |
Milo O'Shea | ... | Sgt. McGillikuddie | |
Freddie Jones | ... | Sir John Meredith | |
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Richard Rickings | ... | Alex Walker |
Richard Attenborough | ... | Writer-Director | |
Marc Sinden | ... | The surveyor | |
Frankie McCafferty | ... | Lenny | |
Conor Mullen | ... | Shamus |
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. Written by <jbartlett2000@hotmail;com>
Puckoon, the story of a small Irish town divided by the Partition of Ireland in 1924 - really divided, the border goes through the middle of it! The characters are wonderful - the village idiot, the poacher, the priest and the hero(?)Dan Madigan, who participates reluctantly in hare-brained schemes to smuggle explosives into the North and deceased Catholics from the now Protestant side of the churchyard back into the Catholic part. Spike Milligan really hit the nail on the head with this hilarious story - pointing up the ridiculousness of political partition by 1)making it so farcical and 2) making the authorities who try to enforce it look like idiots. I notice that the Norwegian reviewer thought it a waste of money - but perhaps this film has the sort of message that only the Brits and Irish would understand. 10/10