Friday, September 20, 2013

Jerry and Tom (1998)

Director: Saul Rubinek

Writer: Rick Cleveland

Composer: David Buchbinder

Starring: Joe Mantegna, Sam Rockwell, Maury Chaykin, Charles Durning, Ted Danson, William H. Macy, Peter Riegert, Sarah Polley, Shelley Cook, Saul Rubinek

More info: IMDb

Tagline: JFK, Marilyn, Elvis, the Parking Permit Guy...Have one thing in common, two words, two huge little words...Jerry & Tom.

Plot: Jerry (Rockwell) is a fumbling car-lot gopher in the wrong place at the wrong time. He watches paternal, easygoing coworker Tom (Mantegna) blithely strangle a man to death. He's a used-car salesman by day and a blue-collar hit man by night, and he gets his assignments right from the lot owner (Chaykin). Before long Tom is mentoring Jerry, a real cool customer who gets downright chilling in his sadistic delight in murdering strangers for cash.





My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yeah.

It should be required viewing for everyone anything with either Joe Mantegna or Sam Rockwell (or William H. Macy, while we're at it).  They're all some of the best actors we've got right now.  Watching them together in this picture is delightful.  Yeah, it's pretty damn funny but this is an actor's film.  Everyone gets their moments to shine and they do (Ted Danson is hilarious).  The scene transitions were nice.  I got the feeling this might have been a play.  It's not until the end credits that becomes clear.  And what the fuck?  Saul Rubinek directed it?  I fucking love this guy.  I'm very impressed.  He shows up near the end as a victim but you barely see him and he doesn't have any lines.  I was bummed out because you can never have too much of this guy.  It's on Netflix instant so anyone with that service has no excuse.  Great flick.

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