Truly Dreadful Film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an outsider and man of uncertain means, finds that his stepson, Leon, has died in a construction accident. As an outsider, Mickey tries to work with reality in Devil's Pocket, Pa. His wife (Christina Hendricks), however, knows the hood, and feels that her son's death was not an accident.Mickey loves Jeanie, so he's willing to get his underground buddies to help him calm Jeanie down; besides, he has money troubles of his own.Along the way, town tribune and echo of sentiment/voice of morality Richard Shelburn (Richard Jenkins) haphazardly, but ultimately self-interestedly, connects the dots.This is one brutal take on the true America—cash only, lacking health care or basic human dignity or unions or any sense of community beyond cheap whisky. Futureless Leon apes DeNiro like any al-Quaeda fighter. Florida and more guns are the only hope for 'Bird'; Jeanie glimpses only an unbuilt plot the rotting Shelburn is a skeleton upon. With a truly telling fact, the movie isn't even shot where it's about, Devil's Pocket, Pa. Actually, it was shot in New York—not even the desperate people it was about could get any jobs out of it.A curious factor about this movie, and pretty well any other ones, is that all American reviewers seem to want to judge it on its "comedy" quotient. In other words, if it doesn't make you laugh (laugh at the killing and the poverty and racism and hopelessness and lack of education, and so on), then it just ain't doggone no good of a fillum. From the Marx Brothers' "why I oughta" to _I Love Lucy_ to now, some Americans should query just what they're supposed to find so funny about hurting or killing often defenseless others (women, children, non-whites). There's a moment or two of dark humour in _God's Pocket_, but those aren't the moments that are supposed to define the movie. For American reviewers, however, they are, because Americans can't see their own destitution in any ways but laughter or money—normal human emotion/sentiments simply don't apply, or constitute currency.Here's a hint, or a tip, for those who really want to follow this film, but are too bored. The tortured drunk Shelburn isn't just put there for comic effect at the beginning, and the voice-overs later aren't there just for hapless loser commentary at the end. Americans know that they can't be un-American, even if it means losing to the rest of the world. In life and love, and in the town he owns, this is Shelburn's conundrum, and he attacks it with words, drink, a booty call, and probably being beaten to death.I don't know; I don't see how anyone, outside of America, could call this anything but a pretty good and ambitious, if hopeless, film.

I'll say this. Philip Seymour Hoffman, in spite of dying way too young, he left us many, many films in which to appreciate his great talent."God's Pocket" from 2014 is one of Hoffman's last films. It's an independent film, done in a natural, realistic style, about blue collar workers in a small town, most of whom are uneducated and scratching out a living. Hoffman plays Mickey Scarpato, whose rotten human being of a stepson is killed but the witnesses on the scene lie to the police. His wife, played by the stunningly beautiful Christina Hendricks, is devastated. Mickey gambles away a lot of money and then finds out the funeral home won't take credit. So he puts the body in a refrigerated truck and attempts to sell it.That sounds funny, and normally I would love this kind of humor, but there's an atmosphere of depression that hangs over this film so that it's hard to find humor even when there is any. Meanwhile, the boy's mother (Hendricks) is demanding to know what really happened, and gets a newspaperman (Richard Jenkins) involved. He of course falls for her immediately.Bette Davis said that today people want acting to be natural, but that real acting is larger than life. I happen to agree - there's just not enough here to keep me interested.The cast is very good and includes John Turturro, Joyce van Patten, and Eddie Marsan. Hoffman is terrific as a desperate man who is trying to do the right thing for his wife but just can't get it together.The film is a little too dark visually for me but it fits the mood. Depressing, but a funny ending.

It's unfortunate that this is one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last serious movies, because his and the rest of the performances are pretty much dead on arrival and completely forgettable. He was much better in his other late film "A Most Wanted Man." (However, neither performance show the subtle and dynamic range he showed in The Master)The description of the plot in IMDb is a JOKE! If you see that plot in THIS movie, then you must be Superman...because you can see through everything.The folks who are talking about "character development" must be nuts. Most of the time we have no idea why anyone is actually doing anything, let alone do we see how the events in the movie change their characters.In retrospect, I wouldn't have bothered with this movie. This is the problem with actors becoming first time directors. Film is a director's medium, and Slattery isn't one (at least not yet).

I just saw this son Netflix and said to myself, whoa, this looks familiar and it was! I forgot I had reviewed it a year ago. In that time, it has not gotten any better. It reminds me of all of those British (Irish, Scottish) films out today, full of despicable people living despicable lives generation after generation, drinking, drugged-out, totally godless people and we are supposed to care about them.I am equally confounded how so many films today feature adultery, infidelity, etc. and yet, never do any of the couples behave as if they took any vows at all - never any searching above for answers never ever considering what marriage really means, never ever calling on any "faith" to see them through.ORIGINAL REVIEW I know it is cliché, but this is a couple of hours I will never get back. What is this flick supposed to be about anyway? The mob? A cover-up? Racism? Your guess is as good as mine.I could not say the performances were great because the storyline is lacking. Why, for example, was everyone so intimidated by Hoffman's character? Is he "connected" or what? It sure did not seem like it. What was with all the "goons" sent out to break a few legs? For what? The undertaker? One minute is is shaking in his boots, the next he has his own boys exact a little justice.The stepson? Seriously? The guy was nuttier than a fruitcake and we are supposed to believe his vestal mother (or anybody else) thought him a good boy? And again, why was everyone so afraid of Hoffman? Why were so many characters (eg Turturo) who were supposed to be tough be so apparently not? Not even in an all-mob-guys-act-tough-but-really-are-just cowards-at-heart way.The mother character (as played by that woman from Mad Men,) was embarrassing and reminded me of a performance Jayne Mansfield might have given had she been trying to prove she could "act." And the reporter guy from Six Feet Under (whose work I generally like) was a cartoon too. And why take us back to explain how the whole thing started? What "whole thing"?The huge funeral - for this little creep? Were the mourners "obligated to go" in an allegiance-to-the-mob kind of way? The horse betting? The small potatoes chits? These "big shots" who sweat over a $6,000 funeral? The "I know he didn't die like they said" stuff? I mean, come on: you'd think she'd be surprised that his body ended up in one piece!I don't know. Maybe I should have read the book, or will (might). Otherwise, calling this a dark comedy seems a bit desperate and only come up with after the creative team saw what it had. The ending seems slapped on and proves that for me. Nonsensical. I hate when I can anticipate the movie ending and not knowing what the hell I just saw. When you sit there going, huh, you mean that's it?