Liam Neeson Movie:

Editorial Review:
Both epic and intimate, Breakfast on Pluto uses the life of Patrick "Kitten" Braden (Cillian Murphy, Batman Begins), a queer orphan boy, to explore the hidden worlds that lie beneath so-called "normal" society--the subcultures of homosexuals, the Irish Republican Army, and prostitutes. At odds with his conservative Irish town, Patrick rebels with the fearlessness of someone whose life feels worthless. When he leaves for London, where he hopes to find his mother, he joins a touring rock band, is almost murdered, becomes assistant to a magician (Stephen Rea, The Crying Game), is arrested as an IRA terrorist, and joins a peep show--and those are only half of the markers on his odyssey (the movie struggles to encompass the novel by Patrick McCabe). Though the first half of the movie feel almost weightless in the headlong rush of events, a rich emotional heft sneaks up on you; by the end, Breakfast on Pluto has become almost unbearably sad and wonderfully buoyant. Murphy's superb performance is both delicate and willful, ably supported by an excellent cast, including Liam Neeson (Kinsey), Brendan Gleeson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and Ian Hart (Backbeat), as well as rock stars Gavin Friday and Bryan Ferry (who has a particularly creepy cameo as a serial killer). --Bret Fetzer

Breakfast on Pluto Reviews:
artistic, enthralling and memorable
2009-12-15 - Breakfast on Pluto is a fanciful, artistic film with a lot of excellent acting and character development. The casting was perfect and the acting extremely convincing; the plot flows well and I didn't get bored. The cinematography is wonderful and the choreography reflects great forethought; and the script was very well written.

When the film starts we see a young baby boy left by his mother on the doorstep of a church so that the Father and the others there could raise him although of course things get much more complicated than that! As Patrick grows up in the home of his foster mother, Ma Braden (Ruth McCabe), trouble starts to get worse and worse when it becomes quite clear that Patrick will grow up to be anything but a jock. Even as a young boy Patrick (Conor McEvoy) loves to put on Ma Barden's shoes and dresses when she's not at home; Patrick eventually prefers to go by "Kitten" since he believes that there was a Catholic Saint by that name--and it lets him express himself as a woman who loves men as well. Inevitably, the almost fully grown Patrick (now played by Cillian Murphy) has had enough of Ma Braden and her daughter Caroline (Charlene McKenna)--and so Patrick leaves Ireland for London to find his long lost mother. He doesn't know much about her except for her first initial and her last name (E. Bergin); and he believes that she resembles Mitzi Gaynor!

Once Patrick is on the road he finds himself traveling with a performing band. Billy Hatchett (Gavin Friday), one of the performers, starts a quasi-romantic relationship with Patrick although Billy also wants to use Patrick as someone to watch their hideout for stored guns--they're actually very involved in the IRA! Patrick goes through other remarkable experiences including being an assistant to Bertie (Stephen Rea), a magician; spending time alone with men for money in London, being beaten up by London police who wrongly believe that Patrick planted a bomb that exploded in a nightclub and much, much more. The film also provides us with a very poignant ending.

As the film progressed I became absolutely enamored with Cillian Murphy's performance. Now there's an actor with guts to play a part so unlike himself in real life! Look also for excellent performances by Liam Neeson as Father Liam; Ruth Negga as Patrick's female friend Charlie; Laurence Kinlan as Irwin and Seamus Reilly as Lawrence.

The DVD comes with an optional running commentary by director Neil Jordan and Cillian Murphy; and I especially liked the "behind the scenes" featurette.

If you like artsy films, this one's for you. I came away feeling as if I had witnessed a grand voyage--an odyssey. The acting is brilliant and you won't forget this anytime soon. I highly recommend Breakfast on Pluto.

Fantastic Movie
2009-06-15 - This is one of my all time favorite movies. Cillian Murphy plays a most convincing and lovable part. I highly recommend this to anyone with an open mind for this type of movie

Stange, but wonderful movie
2008-08-07 - if you are a chap like myself, who enjoy movies that bit more open mind, One would enjoy this movie, if your not anti-gay. This ownderful moving movie that it worht the money you pay. It is well done and wonderful irish movie at that.

wonderfully not average
2008-05-04 - I thought I might be taking a chance on "Breakfast On Pluto" but was completely delighted by the depth and richness of the story and characters, enhanced all the more by it's warm, glittery, soulful 70s soundtrack. Cillian is fantastic as Kitten. Superbly performed character. Very refreshing to hear and see such an unusual and well-crafted, well-produced dramedy. The title track sets the tone perfectly.

Light as a Feather, Serious at Heart
2007-11-16 - "Breakfast on Pluto," (2004),another triumph from Irish director Neil Jordan, was made with support from both the Irish, and Northern Irish film boards. It has a light, jokey style, plenty of wit, and a sound track that refracts ironically from the action. And then there are those robins, slurping up the cream from the milk bottles, commenting on the human action around them, and quoting --gay--Anglo-Irish humorist/playwright Oscar Wilde. But at its heart,this film couldn't be more serious.

The movie was based on a best-selling, raucous novel by Patrick Mc Cabe; Mc Cabe and Jordan wrote the film script. It was filmed on location, in the lovely countryside of Co. Kilkenny, and London. It's set during the swinging late 1960's/ early 70s of that city, a period that, in addition to nifty clothes and cars, also, unfortunately, saw a lot of Irish Republican Army terrorist activity.

The gorgeous Cillian Murphy stars -- if you think he's cute as a boy, you ought to see him as a girl. He gives a remarkable performance as Patrick Braden, who prefers to be known as Kitten, and has a way with a sewing machine. He really deserved at least an Oscar nomination for this job, but had to settle for a Golden Globe nomination. Patrick is a foundling, left in a basket on the doorstep of the local church, where Liam Neeson plays the Father Liam, the priest who finds him and quite likely fathered him. Or so the village, and the robins think, on his lovely young one-time housekeeper, said to resemble the American actress Mitzi Gaynor. Braden's stepmother, Mrs. Braden, is played by Ruth Mc Cabe, who has pretty much grown up on camera. Author of the book, Patrick Mc Cabe, plays one of the boy Patrick's less than-happy-with-the-boy school teachers: for it seems that nobody can keep young Patrick out of girl's clothes and makeup.

Well, eventually young Patrick must leave the charming village of his birth, of course, and start making his way to London, to which his mother is supposed to have fled. On his way, he tarries briefly with popular Irish entertainer Gavin Friday, playing Billy Hatchett,a gay local rock star. In London, he'll run across real rock star Bryan Ferry, playing Mr. Silky String,a serial killer; Brendan Gleeson as John Joe Kenny, an entertainment park performer; the very talented Ian Hart as a P.C. Wallis, and the Irish actor Stephen Rea as Bertie,a mediocre magician who gets attached to Patrick(Kitten) Brady. Kitten Brady will have many adventures in London, some good, some heart-breaking; he will face them all with sweet-tempered equanimity, eventually find his birth mother, and realize she has created a life for herself in which there's no room for him.

Jordan, as is well-known, has frequently worked with Neeson, Gleeson, and Rea, and that shows in the fine performances these stalwarts give him. It's a funny thing, a very bold Cockney friend of mine once found herself standing next to Neeson in the then-famed New York bar, Denim and Diamonds: all she knew was she was standing next to a tall, well-built, good-looking man in a beautiful, beautifully fitted suit. Well, she was watching some young lovers across the bar room, and, inevitably, she began elbowing this guy standing next to her, chatting away about this couple. So they had a friendly chat -- mind you, she had nothing in particular in mind: this friend of mine certainly was a cougar before they'd even invented the concept, an ex- of hers used to call her the Disco Granny, but she knew she was quite a few years older than this man. She just wanted to talk. It was only after Neeson left that the bartender told her who she'd been elbowing. She'd just thought he was a nice, good-looking man in a gorgeous suit. And so he was.

It has been said that the director's pictures are generally about men who find themselves in love with inappropriate love objects, and you'd have to say "Breakfast" fits that mode: Neeson gives us a priest who really appears to have loved his housekeeper, rather than just lusted after her. But no matter: in an Irish village of the 1960's-70's they can have no permanent relationship. Happily for him, however, he comes to realize that, while it may not be popularly approved, he can manage a relationship with his son.