Elijah Wood

Performer for Our Time

Ash Wednesday
(2002)

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Ash Wednesday (2002)
Trivia & Notes
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Here are some interesting notes about Ash Wednesday, which have appeared in various trivia questions on Internet boards or could well appear.

  1. Vincent Rubino plays a most colorfully named character—Vinny Boombatz. This reviewer is sometimes intrigued by the names given minor characters in film.
  2. John Coleman, who plays the dastardly Irish native who is tougher than nails and delivers a solid performance as a bastard extraordinary, is played by Dara Coleman. Are they relatives?
  3. Rosario Dawson, who plays Elijah Wood’s wife in the film later appeared (but not together with) Elijah in Sin City. She will star in the upcoming film version of the musical Rent.
  4. The Blarney Stone, the bar where Sean kills his brothers would-be assassins, is a chain of bars in New York City. I guess that was one set that didn’t need to be struck after shooting (no pun intended).
  5. Hell’s Kitchen is an old neighborhood and perhaps the most notorious crime neighborhood in Manhattan. However, most of it was leveled in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s to make way for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The Hell’s Kitchen of Ash Wednesday is a fictional knock off to the 1980’s. But, as a New Yorker, I can attest that it has a genuine look and feel.
  6. Most of Elijah Wood’s performance is delivered in extended dialog with Ed Burns, unusual for his film work. Probably the closest we come to it is the high percentage of work performed with Sean Astin in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
  7. Uncle Jim, in my humble opinion, delivers a memorable line. When he asks Sean what he grew in Texas, Sean states "wheat!" "You should have grown something more useful like potatoes." (What else from an Irish uncle). When Francis says, "who the fuck cares what he grew?" Uncle Jim answers—"Jesus was a farmer—or, a baker." Uncle Jim is played by Peter Gerety.
  8. The bar that Sean Sullivan has his late night drink at is Red Kelly’s.
  9. The important plot role of the man drinking tea and reading the paper in the bar is credited as Whitey’s Man, played by Stephen Murphy.
  10. The Ashes are a significant symbol. Those that wear them are protected. Those that don’t—well. Look what happens to Francis soon after he washes them off.
  11. Another humorous cast name is Paulie Numbers, played by Kevin Kash. Is that a pun?
  12. BIG SPOILER ALERT. There’s a bit of plot confusion about the hit man on the roof. He is Larossa, Vinny Boombatz's brother, who Sean has killed. He’s hired to kill Sean (being an out of towner and an ex-Marine sharpshooter). He’s not known in the neighborhood, which complies with the ground rules for an in-neighborhood hit. He discovers the proof that Sean has returned (he calls Moran) and he knows that Sean was wearing a "peacoat and a Knick’s cap." So, when he shoots from the roof at the end, as far as he knows, he’s killed Sean not Francis. It’s the only complexity in this otherwise simple tale of the neighborhood.