Homicide Chad'z rating: **1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1991, R, 100 minutes [1 hour, 40 minutes] [crime/drama] starring: Joe Mantegna (Detective Bobby Gold), William H. Macy (Detective Tim Sullivan), Natalija Nogulich (Chava), Rebecca Pidgeon (Miss Klein), produced by Michael Hausman, Edward R. Pressman, directed by David Mamet.
"Homicide" suffers from one of the worst cases of cinematic schizophrenia I've ever seen. First it's a crime film, then it's a mystery, then it's a drama, then it's a thriller, etc. What's really the topper is the fact the film often seems as if it's going to lead to some kind of terrific payoff... and then it doesn't happen.
Joe Mantegna stars as Detective Bobby Gold, your typical New York City-crime/mystery-movie 'tect who, along with his partner Detective Tim Sullivan (Macy), is about to bring down a man on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list if only the feds would back off. The first few scenes are typical of such mainstream cop films - there's the raid, the shootouts, then the arguments between the cops and the feds over jurisdiction and the like which almost turn into small race riots and we have no idea why!
Initially I was intrigued, even though the generic cop atmosphere got old quick, Gold and Sullivan seem like interesting enough people to care about. There's a good sense of camaraderie here without (thankfully) one-liners and slapstick. It seems as if this is going to be a straight crime film, but suddenly everything changes due mostly to coincidence.
Gold finds himself helping out some rookies at the scene of a homicide of an old Jewish shopkeeper. Gold is a Jew and doesn't think much of the case until he finds himself forced into solving it. When the family of the woman approaches Gold about the case and tells him it was an act of hate, Gold starts to pity both the family for being so jumpy and religious, and himself for the apathy he can't help feeling, especially since he knows it's self-destructive.
Here is where the film radically changes course. What had just been an intere sting mystery story suddenly turns into a novel-like melodrama as Gold argues with his fellow Jews over the honor he is supposed to have for both his people and the badge. We get scenes of soul searching disguised as detective work, but nothing seems to be adding up to anything. A sub-plot of another possible hate crime begins to form, and although some attempt is made to resolve it, nothing seems to exist for a reason.
Gold does some investigation into the homicide of the old woman and it appears she used to be a gun runner during WWII, but why would anyone want her dead now? When he stumbles upon a secret Jewish militia, they don't provide many answers, only more conflicts. And if the film had not already descended on a major tangent, it continues to skew as Gold seems to drop everything to get some kind of revenge, and even this act doesn't make much sense.
It's a shame the last act turns the film into another Hollywood thriller, and a lame one at that. It's complete with shootouts, explosions, cliffhangers , dead supporting characters, and last-minute confessions, and yet the film still fails to provide any sense of closure for Gold nor any sense of resolution for the plot.
"Homicide" is one of the few films whose title alone provides for a major flaw. Not only does it sound generic and boring, it's as misleading as the film - you think it's going to be an intricate crime story and it turns into a standard drama (and then some). It's as if everything is a big prelude to nothing.
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