"One Night In Millstreet", a "Cult" Movie: The Reviews Are In!
The movie "One Night In Millstreet" is released and can be seen in cinemas in Ireland, but not in the UK.
How was the film recieved by British and Irish film-critics?
The film features EDUCO Cult-leader "Dr" Tony Quinn and tells the story of the 1995 WBO super-middleweight fight between Steve Collins and Chris Eubank.
The film describes how Collins retained Quinn as his "mind-coach" having found himself without a trainer in Las Vegas weeks before the fight.
The film astonishingly attributes the title "Doctor" to Quinn, despite this being a fiction.
On 2nd April 2024, Andrew Pulver in The Guardian rated the film 3-stars.
He commented on how the film glossed over "Quinn’s other activities, which are interesting" beyond the fairy-tale of the Collins v Eubank fight
Somewhat weirder though is the presence of Tony Quinn, who Collins contends gave him mental strength techniques that enabled him to overcome Eubank. Presented here as a flamboyant eccentric, the film doesn’t enlarge on Quinn’s other activities, which are interesting, to say the least.
Across the words "Quinn’s other activities" the review had linked to a 2012 article published by the Irish Independent.
The Irish Independent's Sunday paper had exposed Quinn as the reincarnation of Jesus in a 1974 article written by famed journalist June Levine.
The Irish Independent's Paul Whitington reviewed "One Night In Millstreet" on 3 April 2024.
The review reminds readers of Quinn's past
With little time to prepare, and his normal coach not available, Collins flew to Las Vegas to train on his own. Then, by a stroke of luck, he ran into Tony Quinn — yoga guru, sometime cult leader and self-professed ‘mind coach’. Though Quinn, as he proudly states in the documentary, knew nothing about boxing, he persuaded Collins that victory and defeat, pain and fatigue, were all in the mind.
On 4 April 2024, Cork newspaper The Echo interviewed director Andrew Gallimore and quizzed him on Quinn's participation in the film and the glossing over of details of abuse by him.
The director explained that there was an effort to omit details of Quinn beyond those of the fight, despite attributing the title Doctor" to Quinn in the film -- a title Quinn is not entitled to use with any seriousness.
“If I was surprised we managed to get Chris Eubank on board, I was shocked that Tony Quinn agreed. He’s such an interesting character, and he polarises opinions. The screenings so far have been interesting. In Cork (during the Cork International Film Festiva)], we had a real boxing audience; it felt like we were at a fight, not a festival screening. The constant, whether it’s been a film festival audience or more of a traditional boxing audience, has been the appearance of Tony Quinn devotees. We’ve never met anybody who’s neutral about Tony. You’re either in his camp or you’re not.”
The director says Quinn’s contribution was vital in the context of the fight, but it was not the right time to examine him in depth.
“The key for us was to use him completely in context. We gave enough background information so that an audience who didn’t know him could get a good idea of who he was.
We couldn’t go into all the issues because this is about Millstreet and the fight. There are other documentaries to be made about him; this was not the time.
On 3 April 2024 RTÉ's Arena interviewed director Andrew Gallimore. (From 7 minutes 17 seconds)
There is no addressing the history of Quinn.
The next day, 4 April, RTÉ's Arena returned to "One Night In Millstreet" to review the film.
Again, the programme omits to address Quinn's past, but all three reviewers do opt to mock him.
Cara O’Doherty, who quizzed the director for The Echo the day before (see above), was a member of the reviewer-panel on the programme.
It is worth noting that RTE's Upfront produced an episode exposing another Cult in Ireland on 29 March 2024, less than a week before.
On the 5 April 2024, on RTÉ Radio One's Oliver Callan show, Callan interviewed Chris Eubank.
In the interview Eubank discusses Tony Quinn, and how Barry Hearn had dismissed Quinn's techniques as "a load of rubbish".
Eubank goes on to praise Quinn and his techniques. At no point does Callan intervene and counter these claims despite decades of newspaper and TV coverage of Quinn, including Professors of Psychiatry and Psychology in Ireland debunking these claims.
RTÉ published an accompanying article written by Ruth Kennedy on 8 April 2024.
Eubank says that the technique threw him and that Tony Quinn successfully used Eubank’s own commitment to mental preparation - and exquisite tailoring - against him
In June 2023 concerns were raised about Eubank regarding his appearence on another radio interview, and calls were made for those around him to look after him.
Other reviewers of "One Night In Millstreet" have chimed in and expressed disbelief at Tony Quinn.
BBC contributor Van Connor reviewed the film for the Offscreen podcast.
Despite a BBC critic having seen the film, the BBC have not published a review for the film.
The BBC exposed Quinn as a Cult leader in 2012.
In 2010, RTÉ journalist Anna Nolan wrote for The Herald of the fear felt by those who leave Quinn's group.
Nolan wrote of a phone call from London:
Then a year later, around two years ago, I got a phone call out of the blue. Someone rang me in RTE. A woman. She didn't want to tell me her name, she said she was living in London.
She told me that I shouldn't give up on making the documentary. She wouldn't leave me her number, but she told me, again, not to give up. I can't describe the feeling I had talking to this woman, but it was the creepiest phone call I had ever received.
There are a handful of other reviews about the film. These label Quinn a "health-shop guru" or "mind-coach". These have been written by hacks lacking the initiative to perform a Google Search and are not even worth the time to link to. You can do what these critics could not do and look for them.
There has been talk of a new documentary about Tony Quinn and director Gillimore has mentioned this (see The Echo article above).
Four TV Broadcasters have produced 4 TV documentaries about Quinn and his followers between 1995 and 2012.
Something is not right in the State of Ireland.