MOVIE REVIEW

By KEVIN THOMAS, Times Staff Writer

For his fifth feature, Edward Burns takes a refreshing departure from romantic comedy to make one of his best, most mature films, "Ash Wednesday," a taut, melancholy tale of brotherly love and redemption set in the darkly atmospheric Irish American underworld of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. "Ash Wednesday" has understandably been compared to Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets," but it's the fatalistic aura of Eugene O'Neill that hangs over it most strongly.

The film takes place between sunrise and sunset on Ash Wednesday 1983. Because its settings are exclusively old apartment buildings, worn taverns with lots of dark wood and an immense Victorian-era Catholic church, and because it concerns itself with the playing out of an ancient vendetta, "Ash Wednesday" could easily be set a century earlier.

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Three years earlier to the day, young Sean Sullivan (Elijah Wood), tending bar, overhears three thugs in the Moran gang plotting to imminently rub out Sean's older brother Francis (Burns). Sean reaches into a drawer, pulls out a gun and opens fire. Shortly thereafter, only Sean's arm, identified by his wristwatch, turns up in the East River. In an instant, Francis straightens out his life and looks after Sean's widow (Rosario Dawson) and infant son.

For all its brooding quality, "Ash Wednesday" is suspenseful and ultimately unpredictable, with a sterling ensemble cast.

David Shire's evocative score and Russell Fine's moody camerawork blend seamlessly to create a drama that beautifully expresses Burns' abiding concerns of brotherhood, Catholicism and morality that is as embracing as it is seductively destructive.

Rated R for pervasive language and some violence. Exclusively at the Fairfax Cinemas, Beverly Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue, L.A., (323) 655-4010. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.