GRAVESEND
A Film Review by James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 5.5 Alternative Scale: ** out of ****
United States, 1997 U.S. Release Date: 9/26/97 (limited) Running Length: 1:26 MPAA Classification: R (Profanity, violence) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Tony Tucci, Michael Parducci, Tom Malloy, Thomas Brandise,
Macky Aquilino
Director: Salvatore Stabile
Producer: Salvatore Stabile
Screenplay: Salvatore Stabile
Cinematography: Joseph Dell'Olio
Music: Bill Laswell
U.S. Distributor: Island Digital Media
"The buzz" about GRAVESEND was that it's a startling debut showcasing the promise of a new director, NYU Film School dropout Salvatore Stabile. The reality goes to show how misleading "the buzz" can be, for, while there's no doubt that GRAVESEND hints at Stabile's talent, that potential is (as yet) mostly unrealized. And "startling" isn't the first word that comes to mind when describing this motion picture -- "underwritten" is a better choice.
Admittedly, the manner in which Stabile has filmed GRAVESEND forces the viewer to notice his approach. It's a confrontational, in-your-face style that never rests. Stabile places his handheld 16 mm camera right in the middle of the action and keeps it moving. Unfortunately, his occasional lapses into artsy pretentiousness (black & white scenes, shots that are intentionally overexposed, etc.) distract from his otherwise kinetic and visceral methods. Those who have compared the director to Tarantino or early Scorsese are giving him too much credit.
The aspect that undermines GRAVESEND isn't the camerawork or the director's touch, but Stabile's script, which is uninvolving and repetitive, and features a quartet of ill-developed characters. At eighty-six minutes, GRAVESEND is short, but there are times when it feels interminable, as we seem to be going in circles, covering the same ground and watching the characters have the same arguments more than once. GRAVESEND also features a significant quantity of banal, profane dialogue. In fact, it's this element that points up one of the major differences between Stabile and Tarantino. Tarantino's dialogue is a pleasure to listen to -- there's rhythm and style to the way the words are pieced together. The same cannot be said of the lines Stabile has saddled his four GRAVESEND protagonists with.
GRAVESEND spends one night on the streets of Brooklyn with four bored, disaffected young men. We meet this quartet of friends -- Zane (Tony Tucci), Ray (Michael Parducci), Chicken (Tom Malloy), and Mikey (Thomas Brandise) -- as they sit around in Ray's basement, arguing and trading quips. When Ray's brother comes downstairs to demand quiet, things get out of hand. Zane whips out a gun and, not believing it to be loaded, pulls the trigger. Suddenly, there's blood everywhere, and Ray's brother is lying on the floor, dead. The rest of the film follows the co-conspirators as they attempt to raise the $500 in cash needed to dispose of the body. And, as the night wears on, the level of mistrust (not to mention the body count) escalates.
One of the most serious flaws with GRAVESEND is that none of the characters are credibly developed. I never for a moment believed that any of these individuals were more than creations of a writer's fertile mind. This is partly the fault of Stabile's screenplay and partly the fault of the actors. With the exception of Tony Tucci, whose Zane is consistently well-realized as a fountain of ill-concealed hostility, the performances are lackluster. There are scenes when Parducci, Malloy, and Brandise hit their stride, but it doesn't happen often enough.
Films about nihilistic, unsympathetic protagonists are always more difficult to execute than those featuring likable heroes, so Stabile has at least shown a degree of ambition in his first feature. On those occasions when GRAVESEND works, it has the capability to engage and entertain. Unfortunately, because of script deficiencies and bad choices (such as an ill-advised voiceover narrative), there aren't enough of those moments for this film to climb out of the continuum of "life on the streets" movie mediocrity. After an involving first fifteen minutes, GRAVESEND runs into a dead end.
Copyright 1997 James Berardinelli
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@mail.cybernex.net
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"The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life. Unlike painting and literature, the cinema both gives to life and takes from it..."
- Jean-Luc Godard
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