Category: Paul Sorvino

THE GAMBLER (1974)

By Marc S. Sanders

James Caan is Axel Freed, The Gambler, and when the film starts it shows the main character figuratively at the bottom of a very deep hole.  From this point on, he’s always looking at its great endless height above; a depth so low or a height so high, that there’s no crawling out of this trap.  No matter the opportunities that rescue Axel from a $44,000 debt to some bookies, he’ll never allow himself to be saved.

The autobiographical inspiration of James Toback’s first screenplay is hardly entertaining, but it held my attention all the way through.  Axel is a well-educated literature professor and an expert on Dostoyevsky but he’s entirely foolhardy.  A parallel inspiration comes from the author’s novella The Gambler.

I dunno.  Whether it’s 1974 or 2024, if I’m told I owe forty-four grand to someone who will otherwise break my legs and then who knows what else, I’d be terrified with fear.  Axel Freed seems to brush off his dilemma as he cruises through the city in his Mustang convertible.  To him, this is just the current setback of the week.  Nothing big.  He’s been in worse situations.  At least that’s what he tells himself. Axel swallows some pride and asks his mother (Jacqueline Brooks) for a loan, and she has to go through her own hoops to scrounge up the funds.  Look for an early appearance from James Woods as an unsympathetic banker.  Once mother’s monies are in hand though, Axel opts for a different route than to wipe his debt clean. Therein lies the anchoring burden of gambling addiction.

Toback’s script, directed by Karel Reisz, is not so much about a story as it is about living with overwhelming compulsion.  He writes good dialogue performed with apathy by Caan.  It’s not about winning.  It’s about the thrill of possibly losing the money he’s got in hand. 

Once Axel obtains money, he ventures off to Vegas feeling sure that he will double what he’s got and still manage to pay off this huge debt.  The brilliance of the film is that it had me tricked as Axel marathons through victory at every table while also feeling confident on three college basketball games that seem to be moving in his favor.  I was not sure if I was looking at a hero or a despairing loser during this sequence.  Reisz convinces me that it can go either way for Axel with his girlfriend, Billie (Lauren Hutton) in tow.

As many films, books, and programs that I’ve encountered focusing on gambling and the addiction it musters, I feel confident I know the outcome of the piece.  What sets The Gambler apart though is the realistic nature of what this kind of craving does to a person.  It depicts the victim as in denial, rejoicing when he dodges bullets, thinking he’s invincible.  The film demonstrates how those close to Axel Freed respond to his mounting dilemmas, but also how they are affected.  It’s inclusive not only of his Billie, his mother, his self-made millionaire grandfather, or even his main bookie (Paul Sorvino), but an admiring student of his as well. 

There are scenes that I could see how they are going to play out as soon as they begin.  I’m sorry but when I see tough guy character actors like Burt Young and Vic Tayback enter a story like this, I know something, or someone, is about to endure some damage and walk away feeling terribly threatened.  Still, I’d be complaining if Toback excised moments like this from his screenplay.

The ending left me feeling a little perplexed as to if it really belongs here.  It’s not a happy ending but seemed to come out of nowhere and I questioned its relevance against everything else that was seen before. 

The strength of The Gambler lies in the honesty of James Toback’s script and the performance of James Caan.  The film belongs exclusively to Caan and his character, with the others entering the frame when they are called upon for a cause and effect of Axel’s actions and decisions.  There’s nothing to celebrate in a hard drama like this, but I applaud the film’s will to uphold a genuine truth of how gambling addiction leaves behind a crippling life for those caught in continuing temptation.

THE FIRM

By Marc S. Sanders

Sydney Pollack was the first director to take a crack at adapting one of John Grisham’s best-selling books, namely the still most popular novel, The Firm. Wisely, and with a measure of risk, Pollack took the script from David Rabe, Robert Towne and David Rayfiel and maintained a true adaptation for the first hour of the film while inventing a new kind of second half that I think improves upon Grisham’s story.

Mitchell McDeere (a well cast Tom Cruise) is the most sought after Harvard law graduate in the country. A small Tennessee firm makes an offer to him that outbids any of the big leaguers. Considering that Mitch comes from a poor broken home with a brother (David Strathairn) currently in jail for manslaughter, the offer and treatment given to Mitch and his school teacher wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) could not be more enticing. A house, a car, school loan payoffs, and a near six figure salary in the first year is not something anyone would walk away from.

Once the happy, young couple are comfortable though, a curious FBI man (Ed Harris, an MVP of this stellar cast) inquires if Mitch finds it odd that this firm has four of its lawyers dead within the last ten years. The two most recent casualties perished in a boat accident.

The sharp minded Avery Tolar (another welcome performance from Gene Hackman) is assigned to make sure Mitch follows the path the firm expects of him. Avery also has his sights set on Abby. For a guy who has never been regarded as good looking, Hackman plays a pretty effective flirt.

The firm, led by a seasoned Hal Holbrook with a charming Mark Twain like bow tie, and a perfect henchman villain played by Wilford Brimley (definitely on my top list of best bad guys) are involved with the Mafia and their shady dealings of money laundering, racketeering, murder and embezzlement. Now Mitch is stuck.

The FBI want to use him to uncover the firm’s activities but that risks blowing his career and maybe his and Abby’s life. If he doesn’t cooperate, then the Feds will run him in with the rest of the gang.

A second hour focuses on a complicated way for Mitch to get out of this ordeal. It means a lot of white collar work and contrived timing in the script. Fortunately though, Pollack builds suspense with foot chases and some allies on Mitch’s side, including Holly Hunter as an hourglass figured, bombshell secretary to a private investigator (Gary Busey) that Mitch went to see. His plan involves traveling to and from the Cayman Islands, and making copies of legal documents to build evidence of mail fraud against the firm.

Mail fraud???? That’s right mail fraud. It’s not a sexy crime, but the script with Pollack’s direction and a hard pounding piano soundtrack from Dave Grusin manage to keep the suspense up and alert.

Pollack directs Cruise to sprint across downtown Nashville for some great sights and hideouts in broad daylight. Your adrenaline moves with the film even if you can’t connect all the dots of Mitch’s complex plan.

In fact, it’s best to just give up on following every little step Mitch and his team take to stay ahead of the firm. What works best is the seemingly no win scenario for Mitch and Abby. Pollack follows a Hitchcock trajectory. He leaves the bomb on the table but doesn’t detonate it right away. Thus the suspense holds steady.

So, the best kind of counsel I can give is to just enjoy The Firm as it runs through its paces. It’s a solid white-collar thriller.

GOODFELLAS

By Marc S. Sanders

Goodfellas is my favorite film by Martin Scorsese. It’s a fast-paced roller coaster narrative of Irish street kid Henry Hill’s experience in the mob, dramatized from his real life as part of the Gambino crime family of New York.

“How am I funny?,” the Lufthansa heist, Spider takes it in the foot and then in the chest, Morrie’s Wigs, the piano montage from Derrick And The Dominos, Billy Batt’s demise followed by an early morning breakfast stopover at mom’s, and Henry’s helicopter paranoia. All of these elements are assembled to depict the perceived glamour and undoing of street level hoods, proud to steal and dress in the finest threads while bedding dames behind their wives’ backs.

Scorsese along with Nicholas Pileggi uncovered something special when they adapted Wiseguy (Pileggi’s book) for the screen. I think they struck a nerve because they showed these guys as men doing a routine living. There was a process to their deeds. Give a cut of your theft to the man above and keep the rest for yourself. Above all else, stay off the fucking phone. Get out of line and get whacked, unless you’re a “made guy.” This is all code, normal to Henry and his cohorts (Robert DeNiro as Jimmy Conway; Joe Pesci as Tommy DiSimone).

Moreover, the wives understood this behavior as well. Henry’s wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) knew these guys were not 9 to 5 husbands and the more it occurred, the more normal it all seemed. Including when the FBI presented a warrant to search the premises. Just let them in and go back to rocking the baby to sleep while watching Al Jolson on the box.

Scorsese took the best approach by not judging the actions of these raw criminals. They dressed well, but they weren’t reluctant to draw blood if an insult was tossed their way. Pesci, in an Oscar winning best performance, represents that philosophy. Scorsese, with his regular editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, are not shy about the violence. Watch how Jimmy and Tommy beat up a “made guy.” DeNiro just stomps his dress shoes into the guy’s face over and over. Pesci pistol whips him, but before he can shoot him, he breaks the gun…on the guy’s face. The romance of gangster life quickly undoes itself in moments like this. As Henry notes, your friends come at you with smiles before they whack you.

Ray Liotta is Henry, the primary narrator and centerpiece of the film. Most of the story is from his perspective. I’m sorry that Liotta didn’t get much award recognition. He really deserved it. His voiceover narration is superb. It gives a feeling like I’m talking to Henry in a bar with his tales of Mafia code and life in the criminal underworld. His voiceover is conversational. He’s also got great expressions of disregard, anger, and intense, raging fear on screen. When Henry is at his worst, his eyes are dry red, and his skin is pale and craggily. None of that is just makeup at work. That’s Ray Liotta performing with an exhausted energy in character. Watch the scene following his 3rd act incarceration where he argues with Karen over the last of their drug supply being flushed down the toilet. It’s not so much a party anymore. The manic response couldn’t feel more real as he slams his hand against the wall and then crouches up into a weeping ball of helplessness in the corner, on the floor.

Liotta and Bracco have sensational chemistry together in scenes of their courting nature when they first meet, followed by the ongoing, bickering abuse that enters their married life. There’s a great hysteria to them. Bracco got a nomination for her role. She deserved it.

Scorsese is a master at filming basic gestures as well to show the nature of these mob guys and their crimes. A key folded in a paper is then inserted into a knob and a stash is walked off with. A blood-soaked revolver is placed in a tin box and then Schoonmaker cuts over to the customary stomping of a glass at a Jewish wedding. Every prop and detail are connected.

Even better is Martin Scorsese depicting the wise guys’ incarceration midway through the film. Watch how the head mob boss Pauly (Paul Sorvino) slices onion with a razor for dinner complete with steaks broiling, pork sauce bubbling and even lobster ready to be boiled. Scorsese and Pileggi found it important to depict how attractive this life could be, despite a stretch in the joint or the violence that might come. Pay off the right guys and you could live like kings.

The master director doesn’t stop there. His selection of doo wop and rock period music paints the historical palette of the 50s through 80s. Music was being played and life was happening all the while an underhanded way of crime and violence occurred.

One of the best blends of film and song occurs during the classic one-shot steady cam where Henry escorts Karen through the back way of the famed nightclub, Copacabana. It’s one of the greatest scenes ever in movies. The walk journeys downstairs, through the kitchen, past wait staff, cooks, bouncers, people necking and to a front and center table to see Henny Youngman’s stand-up routine. The sequence is accompanied by the song “And Then He Kissed Me.” It’s a great character description to display a young guy, proud of his gangster image, with a whole world ahead of him and everyone offering their respects while he hands out twenty-dollar bills like gift coupons. This young guy had power, and the girl holding his hand couldn’t be more impressed.

Goodfellas is one of the greatest mob movies ever made. It’s one of my favorite films. It’s genuine in its grit and language. Every F-word uttered is necessary to translate the regard for code, or the blatant disregard for the law, loyalty within a crew, or even the ethics of marriage. It astounds me that it didn’t win Best Picture in 1990, losing to Dances With Wolves. Perhaps it got cancelled out with fellow mob nominee The Godfather Part III.

Regardless, the film struck a chord and pioneered a new way of showing criminals in celebration of themselves while sometimes encountering the inconvenience of the law or the women in their lives or worse, the betrayals among themselves. At any given moment you might rat on your friend and not keep your mouth shut.

Without Goodfellas, The Sopranos might not have been as welcomed into the pop culture lexicon. Maybe even the films of Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie or Paul Thomas Anderson, or even other Scorsese projects yet to come.

Goodfellas is an electrifying film of unabashed humor, realistic and shocking violence, and authentic culture within a well established crime syndicate.

Goodfellas is a must see film.