A sort of Good Will Hunting, Chapter 2, as the genius from a working class background - Rob Brown, his debut - has to adapt to private education (his basketball rival is oddly underwritten) whilst being mentored by reclusive writer Sean Connery (who co-produced). Matt Damon even cameos. Written by Mike Rich (Secretariat, The Rookie).
Despite its Bronx / Manhattan setting, much of the film seems to have been shot in Toronto.
Interesting score from Bill Frisell and lots of incidental music choices. Interesting editing - Valdis Oskarsdottir (Flag Day, Festen, Eternal Sunshine, Lost River). More beautiful, melancholic, low light lighting from Harris Savides.
With F Murray Abraham as a squid-fiddling professor, Anna Paquin, Busta Rhymes, April Grace, Michael Pitt, Michael Nouri (The Proposal, The O.C.). Brown was recently in We Own This City, also Treme.
You could argue - and I will, since it's Saturday - that the final segment 'Senior Year' is redundant, and could have ended with Connery's stunt double on a bicycle. It's 136 mins.
Then we decided to stay in The Bronx and witness Paul Newman in action as an honest cop in a nightmarish part of New York, smashed and ruined, nicely summarised by the outgoing police captain: "The lowest income per capita, the highest rate of unemployment in the City.. largest proportion of non-English speaking in the City.. Four percent Spanish speaking cops, families that have been on welfare for three generations, youth gangs, winos, junkies, pimps, hookers, maniacs... cop killers." Yes - in Heywood Gould's ironic screenplay, the cop killer (Pam Grier) is never found - the plot twists more around Newman snitching on a murderous fellow officer played by Danny Aiello after tragedy befalls his girlfriend, nurse Rachel Ticotin (we loved her stoned walk). The incoming captain Edward Asner definitely makes matters worse.
Newman's No. 2 is Ken Wahl, and the screenplay is based on real life detectives' experiences of Thomas Mulhearn and Pete Tessitore. Like also the suggestion that the cops are the dregs of the force - people who've given a ticket to the wrong diplomat, beaten up the wrong immigrant, busted the wrong drug dealer etc etc. It's a tough, exciting and impressive film.
Liked "Arrest yourself. Go wait in the van." And "Smack's a vacation for me."
The film is oddly difficult to find now - our second hand copy came from Amazon in the US, and it's a grubby low-res print. Despite poor quality, you can see John Alcott is doing some expert lighting, e.g. in continuous tracking shot where the cops walk in to Hispanic apartment where 14 year old is giving birth. Hadn't heard of editor Rita Roland. Unusual fare for Petrie, who we know from ... No, I'm thinking of someone else. Petrie was long a TV director, made Bay Boy and the 1994 Lassie, displays skill in dealing with big scenes.
The fight between Newman and Aiello is convincingly realistic. There's enough humour to level it out. Newman's great as always.
125 minutes. Fox.
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