As we know here at Film Threat, attitudes at film festivals vary significantly from the customary experience of viewing movies at the multi-plex. Beyond the luminaries taking the choice seats, the staff and runners breaking the silence with their Motorolas, and yourself busy extracting your credentials from the popcorn box, the actual viewing of festival fare has an air of high-mindedness. We don’t park ourselves in front of the screen expecting crap; we expect art that exceeds the pandering status quo.
However this leads to an inverse result in that attendees might elevate the quality of a picture solely for it being shown at a festival in the first place. One recent example of this kind of movie that comes to mind is “Love Liza” which has been distributed in theaters for the past month. This severe little valentine follows a depressed widower as he deals with the loss of his wife by getting high on gasoline fumes. I do not wish to ridicule those who are doing battle with personal addictions, but spending ninety minutes with a morose sort who enjoys huffing high-test is not really the apex of film making. Watch the scene where he is at a service pump and takes his first tentative whiff and you will see my point. Yet “Love Liza” won the screenwriting award at Sundance, 2002.
“Welcome to Collinwood” has that same atmosphere of quality surrounding it. The promotional literature has not one but two of those palm circle insignia announcing it as an official selection of both the Sundance and Toronto International Film Festivals, which anyone will tell you makes it much better than those unofficial selections–which do not even warrant getting those emblems of indeterminate foliar origin. It also had the festival equivalent of “buzz”, where everyone seems to talk about the cast of the picture, who the hot young–or at least new–writers are, as well as who produced and what studios are sniffing around for the rights. What is often missed is the narrow attention paid to the actual product on screen.
By the looks of things “Collinwood” should work. It has a top flight cast, it was produced by George Clooney’s Section Eight production company, (with George in a wry cameo) and the production values and set design draw you in to the world of a beaten down small town and its universe of poorly skilled criminals. And the players are given roles of unconventional and destined-for-failure hoods, played for mirth. The problem is that while due attention was paid to drawing strong characters the story gets lost along the way, which is criminal itself because this had a promising opening to it.
The story is based on the seminal heist farce, the Italian film “Big Deal on Madonna Street”, (no Guy Ritchie jokes, please) and is set in a borough of Cleveland, Ohio. The makers, Joe and Anthony Russo, are natives to the area and employ a well acquainted eye to the scenery, letting the story float in a time haze between the ‘50’s and today. They also begin by peppering the dialogue with localized colloquialisms so that the already faceted characters begin to take on more depth. Then they lose it entirely.
At the start Cosimo (Juan Guzman) is serving a hitch when he gets wind of a “Bellini”, (a can’t-miss heist job) and he needs a “Mullinsky” (someone paid to serve his sentence) to get out and turn the job. As his partner tries to line up someone he unwittingly lets slip the details and attracts a group of witless hoods who want in on the job. Then the Mullinsky (Sam Rockwell) sours Cosimo’s deal and after getting the details of the job gets himself sprung instead. The crew and the plot make for a decent film.
But then the brothers Russo leave the story behind to continue delving into character development and the movie gets bogged down. After long passages following Rockwell as a dopey boxer attempting to seduce a young lass they remember about the purpose of the story. The final act is centered on the heist itself and amounts to nothing more than a string of slapstick routines, including Michael Jeter losing his pants and then his underwear, (shudder). Based on the film’s opening shot, and the ineptitude of the gang, there is little in the way of mystery in how this will turn out.
The introduction was strong enough that you cannot help but wonder why the Russos did not continue to explore the underworld universe of this burg. By keeping on that initial path the town itself could have emerged as the primary character and this cast might have ended up shining through even brighter. Instead the talented crew gets wasted doing pratfalls and shtick and the subtle comedy gets tossed through a plate glass window for belly laughs that do not arrive.
But if I had seen this at Sundance—definitely a 5-star production!
