If you like your coffee black and your scotch straight up and don’t believe
anything good will ever come out of life, this movie is for you. Taut, dark and
foreboding, think Goodfellas without the jukebox hits being piped into the
background and, instead of The Hawaiian Cottage filled with mafia wannabes
wearing dapper shirts, the impetuous violence takes place in a cheap 24/7 coffee
shop that refuses to hand out complimentary cream. It is all mob lore from the
bottom of the food chain.
The premise of the movie is never outwardly stated but
can be figured out very quickly. Nicky played John Cassavetes is a loser of the
first order who, for unknown reasons, has run afoul of the Philadelphia mob and
is on the lam for his life. Peter Falk as Mikey is his supposed best friend who
pretends to be trying to save him but is in reality doing double duty as an
advance scout for the hit man played brilliantly by Ned Beatty. All the players
have no redeeming social virtues.
Thus we start out with Cassavetes hiding out
in a sleazy hotel room in South Philly. He is on the verge of suicide, sensing
full well that his time is up. Falk tracks him down. There the cat and mouse game
begins. Falk is helping Cassavates elude Beatty but in reality is keeping in
phone contact with him but manages to keep one step ahead of Beatty by
misleading him. Remember, this is all pre-cell phones when one had to find a pay
phone and keep track that way. Almost impossible but very convenient if you are
trying to keep 30 minutes between you and your target.
The “window dressing” is
excellent: cheap bars and luncheonettes, big, old, oversized Cadillacs, cheap
perfume infested hotels that are nothing more than temporary shack ups for drunkards, addicts, and low
rent whores and their clientele. The streets are dark and barren. After all,
what decent person would be roaming the streets of a working class Philadelphia
industrial area at this time of night? To really appreciate the flavor of the
movie, one has to examine Beatty character. A purported hit man. Not! Instead of
a Luca Brasi lookalike or someone who walked out of a Graham Greene novel, we
get Beatty as Kinney. He represents all that was bad about the 1970’s: bad hair,
even worse clothes, and a personality that was custom made for the era: a middle
aged, overweight divorcee, who looks like he has spent one too many nights in a
cheater’s bar trying to pick up sexually deprived women of his ilk. All without
success of course!
As Mikey and Nicky stumble their way around town, they visit
a neighborhood prostitute, played to almost perfection by Carol Grace. She is
vulnerable, having been used and abused by every low life in the neighborhood.
Her face has fear and loathing of men written all over it. Whatever beauty she
once had has long been drained from her and her eyes reflect it. In other words,
life for her, as with every other character, is an inevitable road to disaster.
For sheer foreshadowing of the unsubtle variety, we have our two protagonists
riding a bus on their way to visit Nicky’s mother’s grave. They discuss life and
death in a banal way, which is the only way they know how.
Of course, the
graveyard is life’s last destination. Another honorable mention about an F word
that was not thrown around: family. Well, Nicky, after having it out with Mikey,
Nicky attempts to force his way into his estrange wife’s house. Fearing him as
much as loving him, she reluctantly lets him in. Good sense grabs her by the
ankles, and out goes Nicky.
His last stop? Mikey’s house, a surprisingly
well-maintained house in a posh section of Philadelphia. There we meet Mikey’s
wife, Annie, played by Rose Arrick. After Mikey gets home, Nicky knocks on the
door and Rose, knowing what is coming and following Mikey’s orders, refuses to
let him in. Beatty is a block away.
Then, there is light! Sunshine! Odd, until
this point I thought the movie was in black and white but color it was. The next
minute is predictable: Nicky gets gunned down in the style of February 14, 1929.
THE END.
Recommendation: A definite thumbs up. The interaction between Falk and
Cassavetes is superb. Not a wasted scene. As a footnote, Elaine May directed the
movie. It still is a rarity to have a female film director.
Excellent review.... Very underrated movie
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