This film is a blatant rip-off of Bud Schulberg and Elia Kazan's 1954 On the Waterfront. Dennis Leary was in on the writing. He has the lead part.Billy Crudup plays a brief part. Until he's murdered by the Mick Gang Boss who fear he might sing. Shades of Jimmy Doyle.I can see Johnny Friendly, the cops that dog the Irish guys, who are stand-ins for Terry Molloy.I'm not sure they bother with the Irish priest of Karl Malden.There's no Charlie the Gent. There's no girlfriend Edie.But for Edie, there's a couple of cute and nice-looking girls, but Leary's only interested in one of them. At first.There's no waterfront and no pigeons in a coop on the roof.This On the Waterfront has been transposed to Irish Boston. The Irish in question are recent immigrants and first generation people.I get to see parts of Boyleston Street, Beacon Hill and some gritty barrooms that remind me of that Hells Kitchen picture some years ago set near the Five Points in New York, with Sean Penn.The greenish cinematography reminds one of Ford's the Quiet Man.The writing is derivative of the original. Leary and co-author never come up with a single riveting scene. They're not equipped for that.I'm watching a stick-ball hockey scene right after the murder. Leary's toying with Jackie in vague revenge for the murder. When Jackie calls him on it, Leary can't let himself have the showdown so he equivocates with something about doubling a bet.The whole thing backfires on Leary's character. Its the moral equivalent of Terry setting Jimmy Doyle up for his fall off the roof. Leary has backed down to the the gang boss. He winds up taking it out on his girlfriend instead.Bobby O'Grady (Leary) tries to dump Katy for a new classier preppy girl. The classier girl is the other half of Edie Doyle, Jimmy Doyle's sister. Leary's gang of 40 year old 'teenagers' are having trouble getting past the idea of the murder of their cousin.The Mick Boston cops are trying to get one of the O'Grady cousins to crack and finger their cousin's murderer. He's a Mick too, played by Martin Sheen as Officer Hanlon. Now I see where they've parked Karl Malden's priest character. He's in Sheen's Hanlon. Waterfront had two cops, Martin Balsam and Leif Erickson. Only one cop here, but he's got Karl Malden's priest inside him.Leary keeps trying to figure out where he stands morally. Its obvious to the Audience. We've all seen the real On the Waterfront. Then Jackie the gang boss kills another O'Grady. Leary has it figured out now. Unless he does something, he's gonna be next.Nice pat ending. A little bit too pat. Kazan, Schulberg, Charlie the Gent., they couldn't have approved. I can't either. And the boss Jackie would have preferred the fate of Johnny Friendly.

Monument Avenue is a familiar story that has been done before. However, this film really works due to the fine acting and directing. Ted Demme does an outstanding job developing the characters through his his long and sometimes drawn out dialogue scenes. The cast of Dennis Leary and Famke Janssen are extremely convincing and really make this film better than most of it's kind. Perhaps the small, almost cameo roles played by stars Billy Crudup, Martin Sheen and Jeanne Tripplehorn are what really make this film worth seeing. This is a perfect example of how good directing and acting can make a big difference on a common and somewhat predictable script.

I liked this film because it had some good performances and a(even though not truly seen until a half hour into the movie) good plot. And, it is the second time for me (the first was Good Will Hunting) to see a look at Southey (the south side of Boston). Denis Leary teams up once again with director Ted Demme (Denis Leary's No Cure for Cancer and Lock 'N' Load and the Ref) and Photographer Adam Kimmel in a look at a confined, yet wild, group of Irish hoods who, while are racist and drugged up, are also loyal and sometimes funny in the bar sense. Not exactly for everyone, but for fans of the stars, or for people from Southey, it is a great glance. A-

The only reason I saw this movie, or so I thought, was because Jason Barry (whose performance in Titanic and Circle of Friends I liked but wanted to see more) was in it. This was a great movie, considering I don't really like R rated movies. The plot moves along, and I understood it. The visual aspect was not anything to say "wow" about, but I enjoyed the movie. But it is certainly not a child's movie, and I was a bit shocked they would show three characters actually doing drugs. The language was a bit much, and the violence was slightly shocking, but in the end I think that it was a good movie. Especially the end scene, Denis Leary's character looking at slides, his cousin (Seamus O'Grady, played by Barry) in one of them. Very nice, but rather intense for my tastes.