I'M NOT RAPPAPORT
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Gramercy) Starring: Walter Matthau, Ossie Davis, Amy Irving, Craig T. Nelson, Boyd Gaines, Martha Plimpton. Screenplay: Herb Gardner. Producers: John Penotti, John Starke. Director: Herb Gardner. MPAA Rating: PG (profanity, violence) Running Time: 133 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Writers are smacked around so often and with such impunity in Hollywood that it is perfectly understandable when a writer insists on directing his or her own material. It similarly makes sense, I suppose, for a playwright to want to direct the film adaptation of his own material, and Herb Gardner has been unusually protective of his plays. In 1986, he directed his own adaptation of THE GOODBYE PEOPLE; in 1996, he directed his own adaptation of I'M NOT RAPPAPORT. Clearly Gardner is attached to his creations. In fact, he is far too attached. Another director might have identified I'M NOT RAPPAPORT as a meandering play with one interesting idea, and given it the good tightening up it needed. Gardner clings to every line and situation, turning out a sluggish and repetitive meditation on aging.
Walter Matthau stars as Nat, a senior citizen in New York City who spends his days creating identities for himself and causing trouble for those he believes guilty of exploiting people. He is also troublesome to Midge Carter (Ossie Davis), the old gentleman he pesters with his tall tales every day on a Central Park bench. The two become entangled when Midge's failing eyesight threatens his job as an apartment building superintendent, and Nat offers unsolicited assistance by posing as Midge's attorney. Nat's daughter Clara (Amy Irving) considers her father's behavior grounds for having herself declared his guardian, but Nat refuses to change his ways, even when an attempt to con a drug dealer (Craig T. Nelson) places both Nat and Midge in danger.
I'M NOT RAPPAPORT is about a man's attempt to retain his dignity in spite of advancing years, and there are strong possibilities in the character of Nat. A committed Socialist and social agitator, Nat sees his deceptions in defense of the elderly as a natural extension of his life-long belief in the rights of the oppressed. The film's best scene is Nat's showdown with Danforth (Boyd Gaines), the representative from Midge's apartment building, as Nat browbeats the insincere yuppie into a realization that he is attempting to discard a human being who has out-lived his usefulness. Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis both give solid performances, obviously appreciating their own opportunities in rare leading roles, and there is an affecting sincerity to their comments about giving respect where it is due.
That scene between Nat, Midge and Danforth is noteworthy not just because it is the best one in I'M NOT RAPPAPORT, but also because it says everything Gardner has to say that is worth saying. The film basically consists of a series of conversations between characters, and virtually every one finds Nat trying to put something over on someone to prove he is still relevant or to save his skin. In one such scene, Nat challenges a young tough (Guillermo Diaz) who has been extorting protection money from seniors; in another, Nat tries to persuade his daughter that he does not need her supervision. The relationships are not compelling enough by themselves to carry those scenes, and the point that seniors are under-estimated and mis-treated is made and made and made again. As I'M NOT RAPPAPORT wanders through the last of its 133 minutes, you may begin to feel that you have been sitting in your seat as long as its main characters have been alive.
Gardner tries to make up for that repetitive structure by spicing up the third act with the drug dealer sub-plot, and what a strange encounter it is. In an attempt to protect a young woman (Martha Plimpton) who owes the dealer money, Nat plays the part of a stereotypical mob boss who warns the "Cowboy" dealer to leave her alone. What begins as broad comic relief soon turns nasty as the Cowboy (played with scary effectiveness by Nelson) proves smarter and more dangerous than Nat expected. Yet even this scene is a re-tread of the run-in with the young extortionist, as Nat pushes his act too far with someone unwilling to play along. Worse still, it leaves us with the depressing notion that the elderly should be seen and not heard. Gardner didn't need to take us through over two hours of hoops just so that we could end up right where we started. Well-intentioned and well-acted though it might be, I'M NOT RAPPAPORT is the product of a writer too married to every word, and a director too sparing with the knife.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 elder statements: 4.
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