HOMICIDE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Strange and disturbing thriller about a
Jewish policeman torn between two cases. David Mamet's best
film so far is one of those films you cannot fairly even give
thought to until it is all over. A spoiler included after
the review discusses several of the questions raised by the
film. Rating: +3 (-4 to +4).
Bobby Gold (beautifully played by Joe Mantegna) is a respected cop on the homicide squad who has reacted to police department anti-Semitism by struggling to assimilate and to ignore his Jewish roots. Early on we see him be the butt of a totally unreasonable tirade from a bigoted black superior who gets his jollies calling Gold a "kike." Gold is already involved in a case trying to find a black cop-killer before the FBI can find and kill him. He is getting enthusiastic about this project and its prospects for him to redeem himself in the department's eyes. Then, by accident, he becomes involved in another case and is told he must take charge of this case also. An elderly Jewish woman who ran a candy store in a black neighborhood has been murdered. The last thing he wants is an assignment that will tie himself in with the Jews, and it does not help that the woman's family seems to think that there is a deeper conspiracy involved. But then evidence starts appearing that may point to an anti- Semitic conspiracy. That and an unmasking of Gold's own self-hatred as a Jew start pushing him to value this case more and to neglect the other.
HOMICIDE is just a sort of typical David Mamet. That is, there is a fair amount to say about it, but most of it falls under the classification of spoiler. Any review that does not ruin some of the surprises of this marvelous puzzle of a film will be so general as to be nearly pointless. David Mamet, like the Coen Brothers, specializes in crime films with a sort of unexpected spin. I first became aware of Mamet through a radio play called "The Water Engine" which had a marvelous 1939 period feel and dealt with one of the great American myths, the engine that runs on water for fuel and that the insidious auto companies have hushed up. Mamet wrote DePalma's UNTOUCHABLES, but also has directed his own screenplays HOUSE OF GAMES and THINGS CHANGE. Both were good; HOMICIDE is better. HOMICIDE lacks BARTON FINK's visual style and craftsmanship, but its story is better and a case could be made that the two are thematically linked. They are the two of the best films I have seen this year and they would be very interesting seen as a pair.
Mamet's excellent screenplay is a grabber from the very first scene. The film is already tense and suspenseful before the first word of dialogue is spoken. Most enigmatic is Joe Mantegna's Bobby. Does he suddenly feel a solidarity with the Jewish community or is he reacting from guilt and to prove something. How real was his anti-Semitism earlier; how real was his reversal? Was he doing what he believed or was he first professing not to like Jews in order to win approval from his buddies, then reversing to prove something to the Jews he met through the case. There is a lot to this film. I give it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
SPOILER WARNING
Mamet's story is an amazing orchestration of smoke and mirrors. Like THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, we follow the reasoning each step of the way to its logical conclusions. But in THE DAY OF THE JACKAL at least we feel we know our logic was wrong earlier. At the end of this film we do not even have the security of knowing anything. We have no idea to what degree Bobby was right, to what degree he has misled himself, and to what degree he has been intentionally manipulated.
In a bad James Bond film, such as MOONRAKER, the clues are all laid out for Bond. He gets into a fight in a factory, knocks into a crate, finds an address on it, and goes to that address only to get into another fight and find another clue. Bond never goes off in the wrong direction. In HOMICIDE the clues seem a little too easy to find. It is almost as if they were left lying around intentionally. Bobby never stops to reason, for example, that organizations like 212 do not put their addresses on stationary. On the other hand, it is a tenuous chain of events that brought Bobby to that clue. If Bobby were intentionally being brought to 212, there were a lot of people in on the plot. How could they have been sure Bobby would could to that yeshiva and overhear the mention of 212. If the finding of 212 was just chance, how did the organization know so fast what it wanted from Bobby?
It seems almost impossible that there was not a Jewish conspiracy. But if there was a Jewish conspiracy to get back the names, the question is why? The law is not going to go after people who ran guns to the Israelis forty- five years ago. There might be a revenge plot going on against the gunrunners that would explain the murder. And we did catch a glimpse of someone on the roof. But that implies there are two opposed conspiracies. That seems a little far-fetched, particularly since the police think they know who committed the primary murder.
Then maybe there was no conspiracy at all. Except that 212 did seem to know they wanted Bobby's list. The plot is constructed like a bedsheet that you can tuck in only three corners on. If you try to tuck in the fourth corner, one of the other corners pops out. There is no consistent explanation of what we saw. And in the middle of this confusion is Bobby, who would be betrayed by his own people, much like Randolph was.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
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