ROOMMATES
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1995 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
(*** out of four)
If you've ever perused my college comedy diary "Another Year in the Life of a Nerd" (I never run out of cheap plugs), you know I didn't get along with my first-semester roommate too well. In fact, during the three-week period between Thanksgiving and Christmas Break, I said a total of four sentences to him.
So when I saw in the residence hall cable listings a movie called ROOMMATES, I envisioned 90 minutes of conflict between a couple of bickering young adults trapped in a 10 x 13 foot dorm room. Then I saw that the star of ROOMMATES is Peter Falk. Scratch that idea. But I still say someone should film the story of two college roommates whose relationship is less than ideal. Of course, in my case it would be a silent picture.
Even without the college element, I still decided to watch ROOMMATES because I had absolutely nothing to do, unless you count studying for final exams (And who does?). I'm glad I did. Peter Falk's performance was actually what made the movie. And this is a guy I never considered a real actor, more like someone who went around in a trenchcoat solving prescripted mysteries. Falk pleasantly surprised me here, permanently earning my respect, so all you "Columbo" fans who think I live to insult the guy can just falk off.
Falk plays Rocky, a 107-year-old Polish baker who raises his grandson after both the kid's parents die. The movie begins with the mom's death and the son moving in with his grandparents. After a couple stops along the son's journey to manhood, ROOMMATES progresses to the present day, with the grandson a surgeon and Rocky in a condemned house he refuses to leave. The surgeon reluctantly offers the only possible solution -- Rocky will have to move into his place, the basement of a building rented by a group of Chinese students ("Communists!").
The movie spans nine more years of Rocky's relationship with his grandson, and the trials posed when the grandson meets and falls in love with--gasp--a woman, and starts spending all his time with her. So, in his grandson's absence, Rocky turns his pursuits to professional boxing, achieveing the world heavyweight title in a climactic fight with Apollo Creed... Or am I confusing movie plots again?
ROOMMATES has an almost epic feel to it, covering several generations of a family with one fiesty immigrant who refuses to die. Death, though, knocks at the door of almost every other major character in the the movie. ROOMMATES has about as many casualties as the first Halloween. The number can't be counted on one hand, unless of course you're the victim of some hideous genetic mutation. And you can probably guess who says farewell to Planet Earth at the end of the movie (no, not Duran Duran). I won't come out and say it. Instead, I'll just sit here and hum "Eye of the Tiger" until each and every one of you figures it out.
ROOMMATES plays on all the major emotions. It knows when to make you laugh and when to make you cry. Movies that can perfectly mix comedy and drama are always hits with the audience, even though this one bombed at the theaters. My point? There are no absolutes. Or, another possible point, Peter Falk just isn't such a great box office draw. Either way, this is still a good movie and you should give it a chance like I did, whether you hate your roommate or not.
- Visit the Movie Critic at LARGE website at http://www.missouri.edu/~c667778/movies.html
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