Monument Ave.


Monument Ave., originally titled Snitch in the United States and titled Noose in Australia, is a 1998 American neo-noir crime film directed by Ted Demme and starring Denis Leary. The film also stars Famke Janssen, Martin Sheen, Ian Hart, and Lenny Clarke. Cam Neely also makes a brief appearance as a man returning home from work who finds his house has been broken into. The film takes place in Charlestown, Massachusetts and centers on small-time criminal Bobby O'Grady, who becomes conflicted due to Charlestown's code of silence when his loyalty and drive for self-preservation are tested after two of his close family members are gunned down by their boss.

Plot summary

Bobby mentors his young cousin, Seamus, into a life of drugs and crime soon after Seamus emigrates from Dublin, Ireland. Bright, conscientious, but notably naive, Seamus finds himself unable to get used to the spontaneous dangers and recklessness of his new life in America. After two particularly traumatic incidents, including committing a hate crime on an African American youth who had crossed the racial boundary around Charlestown in the 1990s, Seamus is afraid of further involving himself with Bobby and Bobby's circle of criminal friends. Seamus tells Bobby he wants to return Dublin, and the two argue after Seamus blames Bobby for dragging him into a dangerous and "damaging" lifestyle he never wanted. Seamus is killed soon afterward when crime boss, Jackie O'Hara, mistakenly believes Seamus told police about O'Hara's criminal operations and an earlier hit that had been ordered against Bobby and Seamus' cousin Teddy – who had made a deal with police in order to reduce a sentence he'd already been serving.

Cast