THIS UNPRETENTIOUS FILM solves a mystery that's bothered me since my first visit to Ireland. Riding through the Irish countryside on a tour bus, one sees what are apparently "gypsy camps" alongside the highways and wonders why the Irish apparently welcome gypsies when the English and Welsh whose countryside I'd just similarly surveyed did not. It turns out, according to the press kit accompanying this film, that these are not ethnic Romany gypsies of the kind who used to travel smalltown and rural America (and perhaps still do, for all I know), but ethnic Irish "tinkers," as the people call them, or "travellers," as they call themselves. They make their living pretty much like traditional gypsies, sending single men and teams out to travel the highways and bilking people by selling services like driveway or roof "sealing" with what is used crankcase oil rather than real sealant, tar.

Some of these travellers immigrated to the United States to escape famine and British persecution along with the other waves of Irish, and still exist in pockets in the south and elsewhere. But instead of parking their travel trailers next to the highways, they hide deep in the woods. Bill Paxton, who co-produced, plays the central character, a surrogate son to clan leader Boss Jack O'Hara. Paxton dares to disagree with the Boss over whether to give quarter to a young man, Pat, whose father deserted the travellers to marry in his youth, who has returned to bury the father in the clan cemetery and wants to become a traveller. "Marky" Mark Wahlberg plays the initiate and quickly proves himself up to the outlaw life, having even less compassion for his victims than Paxton. The erstwhile "rap artist" Wahlberg, who became famous by dropping his pants during rock concerts and posing in his underwear, plays the part straight, believably, and with his clothes on.

Unfortunately, this pretty much covers what's interesting about this film. Paxton's character falls in love with an outsider (played by Julianna Margulies of ER), which is verbotten, and the con game leads to a big sting, shoot-em-up-blow-em-up, the current equivalent of the classic western, except there are no real good guys to root for here unless Paxton's being led by love and Wahlberg's desire for roots even if in fertilizer somehow redeem them. If you think about it, those "values" don't redeem anything. Even Stalin and Hitler presumably loved and desired roots. But the geo-history lesson and the adequate production values redeem the film enough for a marginal thumb up.