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AN EVERLASTING PIECE Send This Review to a Friend
The "piece" in "An Everlasting Piece" refers neither to a gun nor slang for sex, but to a hairpiece, a good old-fashioned toupee. Director Barry Levinson has gone far afield to fashion a rollicking comedy that is set in, of all places, Belfast during the 1980s. Amid all of the tensions involving the IRA and the Protestants, two odd characters, one Catholic, the other Protestant, team in a partnership to sell wigs. That's not so easy, given the heavy competition from a rival company named Toupee or Not Toupee. As you can readily see, this is far from Shakespeare.
Colm--he's the Catholic played by Barry McEvoy, who wrote the screenplay--and George, the Protestant played by Brian F. O'Byrne, are fellow barbers, and they are expert in cutting hair of asylum inmates. Their entry into the toupee business sets off a series of misadventures that are extremely funny in the manner of offbeat films that have come from Ireland and England. One of the daffiest involves an encounter at night on a lonely road with an IRA contingent.
Also starring is comedian Billy Connolly as an inmate nicknamed The Scalper. Another boon is the casting of Anna Friel as the no-nonsense, spirited Bronagh. Friel is a wonderful, versatile actress who won a Drama Desk award for her featured performance in the Broadway production of the imported play "Closer."
"An Everlasting Piece" rolls merrily along through one crazy situation after another for good wacky fun, although you can also take it as a wry comment on getting along in Northern Ireland. A DreamWorks Pictures and Columbia release.
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