HOMICIDE
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
HOMICIDE is a film directed and written by David Mamet, produced by Michael Hausman and Edward Pressman. The film stars Joe Mantegna, William H. Macy, and Natalija Nogulich. Rated R for language and violence.
HOMICIDE is David Mamet's third film (HOUSE OF CARDS, THINGS CHANGE) and has many fine qualities to recommend it. However, it does suffer in several areas, too, and can only be considered a qualified success, at best.
Joe Mantegna plays a Jewish cop, Bobby Gold, in New York City. Mantegna has earned directors' and audiences' respect in a long string of solid performances, including Woody Allen's ALICE, Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER III, and (reportedly) Barry Levinson's BUGSY (which will be opening soon in the Seattle area). And Mantegna has a history of working with playwright Mamet going back to their days in Chicago's Organic Theater Company, as well as parts in Mamet's earlier films. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Mantegna fails to give us a convincing performance.
Perhaps the lead character and the script itself are too heavily invested with irony and the sense of the cosmic joke to not weigh us the audience down with confusion and ambiguous reactions to Bobby Gold's identity crisis. More likely, neither the actor or the writer is able to convince us that this detective, who has lived in New York's ethnic olla for forty years, would suddenly suffer the conflicts of interest and identity his is supposed to undergo. He has to choose between his partner (William H. Macy) and the beautiful woman (Natalija Nogulich, who reminds me of Anglica Huston, between the fraternity of cops and "being a Jew" as it appears to be defined within this context. In one night, we have a vast, desperate attempt to right the wrongs of a lifetime. But we have no idea where the energy for all this angst is coming from.
Beyond the motivational hole, we still have a wonderfully atmospheric cop drama, shot by Roger Deakins, who was also the cameraman for BARTON FINK. Character parts are filled mostly by New York stage actors and are suitably unfamiliar and eccentric. The dialog is hard-boiled cynicism, although one scene between Mantegna and Macy sounds way too much like DRAGNET. The film opens with great suspense and violence and surprises; the subplot started there carries the film forward with emotional and professional conflicts, as well as providing chases and more violence. Mamet shows great skill in this genre.
I can recommend HOMICIDE, but matinee prices might make the problems more palatable.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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