By Joan Bolger

Boston native Mike O’Dea, an ex-con who ran with a pack of hard drinking criminals in the murky underbelly of Boston’s Irish Mafia in the not so distant past, is set to begin shooting Townies next month, a story about an Irish gangster who wants to cut loose from the life of crime.

O’Dea set up his own production company, Shamrock Films, to produce this film based on a story about a tightly knit pack of Charlestown criminals who are trapped in a life of crime. The difference is that one of them, the main character, wants to get out.

The 35-year-old writer/producer spoke to the Irish Voice about how far things have come for him, and about his preparations to have the movie ready for the Toronto Film Festival next year. “The submission deadline is June, so that gives us the whole winter to finish editing,” he said.

O’Dea’s own turning point came, he said, while waiting in a freezing prison cell for seven hours.

“I made a promise to God that I’d quit the life of crime if he could get me out of the mess I was in,” O’Dea recalls.

Evidently, that promise was realized and in fact, if everything goes to plan, the young actor could be starring alongside Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke, two actors who are linked to the project.

“As far as star actors, we just heard from Eric Roberts who wants to take a look at the script, and next I’ll be targeting Mickey Rourke, a good friend of his. Those are the only two that will be paid. Everyone else wouldn’t be paid until the movie is sold,” O’Dea said of a cast that will work weekends to complete the feature length production on its tight deadline.

“Financing was difficult, it was a long hard road, but we finally got there,” he said of a project that has surprisingly only taken him two years to get off the ground from its initial inception.

Townies is different to other gangster movies, O’Dea says, in that it depicts the life of Irish gangsters in real terms. “The characters wear average clothes, drive average cars and live in average apartments,” he says.

“This movie isn’t for me, it isn’t just for Charlestown townies, it’s for the Irish worldwide. All 60 million of us,” he added.