'White Irish Drinkers'captures the familiarity of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in working-class Irish film

An early scene in"White Irish Drinkers"perfectly captures theBay Ridgeof directorJohn Gray's youth.

The regulars are knocking back a few pints in the local pub when a couple of strangers dressed in fancy disco suits step inside.

"Go back toBensonhurst!"sneers the bartender as his customers— many of them civil servants and dockworkers — roar in approval. The outsiders slink away.

Gray's intimate indie film shines a spotlight on the insular working-class Irish community that shaped him in the 1970s.

"I grew up in Bay Ridge, and I wanted the chance to portray the characters in that world the way that I experienced them: as funny, sharp, sarcastic, cynical— and not stupid,"says Gray, sitting at the Playwright Celtic Pub in midtown with"Drinkers"starPeter Riegert.

"It was tight-knit,"he explains."There were more people back then who didn't stray out of the neighborhood because you understood your neighborhood— you even had a certain comfort level with your enemies — which was what made it so frightening to think about leaving."

The film, which opened the Craic Film Festival and plays the Landmark Sunshine Cinema starting Friday, followsBrian Leary(Nick Thurston), an aspiring artist who dreams of escaping his abusive, alcoholic father but feels pressured to conform to his blue-collar community.

"You learn what you grow up in ... and it's hard to break away from the expectations of your family or your neighbors,"says Riegert, who was raised in theBronxbefore starring in"Animal House"and"Local Hero."

"My folks were great about me wanting to become an actor, but they got a lot of crap from other people."
 
Gray also lived out his protagonist's quiet rebellion."I knew from a very, very young age that I wanted to write and direct a movie,"he says,"and that was something that was unheard of in the neighborhood.

"If you wanted to grow up to be a boxer, they could understand that and get behind that. But a filmmaker? How do you make a living on that?"

Director John Gray (l.) and actor Peter Riegert of the film 'White Irish Drinkers.' (Smith for News)

Granted, Gray had an easier time coming of age than his characters."I didn't suffer the way Brian does in the movie, but I certainly had friends who did,"he says."If something in the movie didn't happen to me, it happened to people I knew."

It took 10 years to get his labor of love off the ground. After no one picked up his script, Gray banked $600,000 of his own cash (made from creating theCBShit"TheGhost Whisperer") and attracted actors from Riegert toKaren Allen(familiar from theIndiana Jonesfranchise) andStephen Lang(fresh off of"Avatar") to his personal project.

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