A recent Los Angeles Times article featured Kill the Irishman, a new film that tells the story of legendary Cleveland mobster Danny Greene, who went to war with the Mafia for control of the city's underworld economy in the 1970s.

The film is based on the book "To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia" by Rick Porrello, now chief of police in Lyndhurst, where Greene was killed by a car bomb in 1977.

Cleveland is not a well-known Mafia city, says the reporter. "But there was a time -- back in the 1970s -- when the Ohio city was a raging mobster battleground. And when it came time to take out a rival, locals did more than bring a gun to a knife fight; they came on big and loud with all manner of explosives, earning Cleveland the moniker Bomb City, USA."

Greene's personality makes him an instantly likeable movie character. Jonathan Hensleigh, director and co-writer of Kill the Irishman, is quoted as saying, "As screenwriters, we're constantly asked to take characters who are actually quite despicable in real life and make them attractive. But Danny Greene really was. He actually did put orphans through school and would buy 50 turkeys for the poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It doesn't get any better than this as a dramatist."

Kill the Irishman, starring Ray Stevenson, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio, hits the big screen on March 11.

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