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At the
Movies Inner workings
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
Dinner Rush serves up a
convincing slice of New York by concentrating on the inner workings of Gigino,
a fashionable Italian restaurant in Tribeca.
An independent film directed by Bob Giraldi from a bright
screenplay by Rick Shaughnessy and Brian Kalata, it combines good character
comedy, many laugh lines and a sense of menace from two Mafia thugs who want to
take over the restaurant by threatening its likeable owner, Louis Cropa (Danny
Aiello).
Since the movie rarely goes outside, you get a real sense of what
a typical evening is like at Gigino, with repeated shots of frantic food
preparation, the chef screaming at his assistants, waiters rushing up and down
stairs, and impatient customers demanding tables. The plot line is firmly
established at the outset as Louis explains the Mafia threat, and shows his
ambivalence about the restaurants success under his son, Udo (Edoardo
Ballerini), the chef. Although Udo is a brilliant perfectionist who has
mastered the newest delights of an Italian-seasoned haute cuisine, Louis fondly
remembers the days when his wife ran the kitchen and he could get a heaping
dish of sausage and peppers.
Louie and his partner Enrico had always been involved with
bookmaking on the side, but he was unprepared for the sudden violence of Black
and Blue, the Mafia types who shoot Enrico down in the street as the credits
roll. During the night in which the movie takes place, Louie has to deal with
the two killers, who show up for dinner; his son Udo, who is impatient for his
father to retire and give the restaurant over to him; and Udos assistant
chef, Duncan (Kurt Acevedo), who cooks in the old style Louie prefers but is
frantic with fear because of the gambling debts he has run up with the mob.
The restaurant is so rushed that it takes the whole movie to
figure out exactly what is going on. Meantime, we savor enjoyable short takes
both in the kitchen and at the tables upstairs. When Fitzgerald (Marc
Margolis), an obnoxious art gallery owner, arrives with a few guests, he
immediately insults his harried waitress. The latter, however, an artist
herself, turns the tables on the would-be sophisticate and even wins the
support of Fitzgeralds friends. Black and Blue make vague threats and
Louie seems unsure about how to respond. Duncan is so frightened that he is of
no help in the kitchen and rushes out with one of the waitresses for fast sex.
An influential woman food critic arrives with a young woman friend
who begins to get overly interested in Udo. There is also a young man who
stands alone at the bar for some time before picking up an attractive drinking
companion.
The dramatic resolution of the film leaves serious ethical
questions that Dinner Rush doesnt really want to deal with.
An expertly concocted light entertainment, the movie is content to show how
enjoyable Danny Aiello can be as a genial restaurateur and concerned father,
and to allow us to pass an evening with beautiful New Yorkers on the make.
Training Day is a
frighteningly unpleasant movie dominated by an electric performance by Denzel
Washington -- even his smiles come to seem dangerous. He plays the handsome
Alonzo Harris, an undercover narcotics officer with a platinum-and-diamond
crucifix around his neck, who uses his considerable intelligence and dangerous
charm to dominate others at any cost. Straight-arrow Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a
rookie cop who wants to trade a uniformed beat for more important work, endures
a wildly overcrowded day of intimidation by Alonzo and instruction in how to
bend the rules.
You have to decide if youre a sheep or a wolf, if you
want to go to the grave or go home, Alonzo tells Jake. There is an uneasy
fascination in the way Alonzo plays mind games with his young student and gets
the young cop to smoke a joint as a test of manliness -- and later use it to
trap him. Training Day makes Los Angeles seem like a constantly
dangerous place to live, and the movie is overcrowded with incidents that seem
unexplained and improbable, but one watches with horrified fascination. At
times it seems to hint at the Los Angeles police scandals of the 90s,
especially during a sinister encounter at a bar between Alonzo and members of
the police brass. When a major drug bust yields $4 million, Alonzo splits one
million of this with the police who helped make the seizure, but Jake turns
down his share.
It is hard not to be caught up in the dangerous thrills of
Training Day, despite a poorly integrated subplot involving
Alonzos need to repay a Russian mobster for gambling losses at Las Vegas.
Hawke is a good foil for his crooked instructor, conveying fear and uncertainty
at the new situations he is constantly thrown into. What is disappointing is
that we keep expecting Alonzos character to change and deepen but the
movie rushes past several false endings without offering further insight.
Training Day is the latest example of how Hollywood
constantly fails to use its major black actors to make pictures that transcend
the clichés of violence and nonstop action. Denzel Washingtons
agent may have told him to accept the role as a chance for an Oscar nomination,
but the star should have given consideration to the possibility that the
glamour he lends Alonzo -- with images of him controlling a white underling --
could easily make him a role model for the young and impressionable. Of course,
Hollywood has exploited the theme of the gangster as hero since before the days
of Jimmy Cagney, but Washingtons character seems especially dangerous
because he is so suavely controlling that it is easy to ignore the fact that he
is always capable of murder.
Jacques Rivettes Va
Savoir (Who Knows?) opened the New York Film Festival this fall
and began its run in art theatres the following day on the reasonable
assumption that it would be one of the most popular foreign movies of the year.
Rivette (Celine and Julie Go Boating, The Nun,
Joan the Maid), a widely admired director whose work often deals
with the relationship between film and life, is here surprisingly assured in
handling romantic comedy. Although there are farce elements, it remains the
work of an intellectual. It tells the story of an Italian acting troupe coming
to Paris to stage Pirandellos As You Desire Me, a play about
a woman whose identity keeps changing in accordance with the assumptions of
those around her.
In Who Knows? Camille (Jeanne Balibar), a French
actress playing the Pirandello lead (the part Greta Garbo had in the movie
version of the Pirandello play), is emotionally upset about returning to Paris
after three years because shes anxious to see her former lover, a
philosopher named Pierre (Jacques Bonnaffé). Her exaggerated moods are a
bit trying on her director, co-star and current lover Ugo (Sergio Castellitto),
who is concerned about poor attendance for the show and anxious to locate the
manuscript of a never-produced Goldoni play that may be hidden in a private
Parisian library. In the process he is aided by the flirtatious Do
(Hélène de Fougerolles), who tells him that the library he is
looking for is in her mothers apartment and has long been a prized
possession of her family.
When Camille calls on Pierre, he is not there, and she meets his
current lover, an unsmiling dancer named Sonia (Marianne Basler). But she
successfully locates him at his customary park bench, and after a strained
encounter, she and Ugo are dinner guests in Pierre and Sonias apartment.
The artificiality of the encounter becomes comic, especially when Pierre
discusses his dissertation on Heidegger, and Ugo is the only one who acts
naturally. Rivette splices bits of As You Desire Me into his
leisurely plot (2 1/2 hours running time), which takes yet another twist when
Dos half-brother, Arthur (Bruno Todeschini), a gambler and a crook,
forces his attentions on Sonia in order to steal her valuable ring.
Through it all, Rivette keeps attention centered on thin, neurotic
Camille, whose long legs help her escape over a rooftop after Pierre tries to
lock her in a back room. Though the comedy keeps juggling its male-female
combinations, and takes a detached attitude to the exchange of sex to attain
ones ends, the director does not rely on sex scenes to hold audience
interest. Instead, he stages a slapstick duel between Ugo and Pierre, and sets
his company dancing at the finale.
None of this is profound, but its a pleasure to meet Rivette
in a lighthearted mood. Liking Who Knows? may depend too much on
whether you enjoy Camilles neurotic clowning. And Dos mother,
Madame Desprez (Catherine Rouvel) is irresistible, constantly offering to make
cake for whoever comes to her home.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie
reviewer.
National Catholic Reporter, October 26,
2001
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