Customer Reviews

Homicide (The Criterion Collection)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Some David Mamet films have incredible notoriety amongst the literate set (Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, House of Games). His 2 Oscar noms (Wag the Dog, The Verdict) as well as his non-nominated script for The Untouchables have him firmly established with Hollywood's power base as well.

For my money, the oft-overlooked Homicide is a true Mamet gem--startling in its genius.

Put simply, Homicide is a revealing look at a man's journey into himself. Many will be distracted by the subject matter and tune out, but try to hang on.

Joe Mantegna's Bobby Gold is a tough cop who denies his Jewish lineage, until a low priority murder investigation into an aged Holocast survivor forces him to re-evaluate his entire existence. The resulting destruction of the man is cruel and never-ending,...and brilliant.

William H. Macy, an until-now bit player, gets a well-deserved promotion to #2 man among the strong supporting cast as Gold's partner and sounding board.

The intricacies of the plot, the subtleties of the subtext, as well as the perfunctory Mamet attention to detail may mean a second, or third look is necessary for the viewer to get straight with what's going on------- but take the time, if you can, it just keeps getting better and better.

I too, like many of the other reviewers, am tired of viewing my old and worn VHS version of this movie. This is one of a very few movies I absolutely MUST have in DVD.

A 1991 film, "Homicide" opened the careers of two very important stars: William H. Macy, and Ving Rhames. A very under-rated and seldom-seen Joe Mantegna stars as Detective Bobby Gold, who works for an unstated northeastern police department that looks every bit like Baltimore PD.

The department is after the killer of two cops. The FBI attempts to arrest the suspected killer (in a wonderfully understated, quiet but efficient initial scene) but manages to let him vanish. The heat is on the mayor's office and politics rage. Det. Gold is called a "kike" by one of the mayor's black handlers. In the process of tracking down the cops' killer, Gold manages to get himself involved in the homicide of an older Jewish woman killed in her store. Was she the target of everyday thugs, or the mark of someone continuing the Jewish pogrom?

"We'll bust this big criminal; we'll swagger around." And William H. Macy gives an award winning smile.

From there, all is not as it seems. When Det. Gold begins to investigate all that he believes, he discovers, at the end, that all is, in fact, nothing but irony.

And because I am in law enforcement I know, emphatically, that that which you thought was one thing may, in fact, be clearly another. Something that you never anticipated -- but your mind must be open to receive -- has come to fruition.

This movie is ALL about irony. I'll not be the spoiler. But it is also about dialogue (any Mamet movie is not unlike any Howard Hawks movie -- THAT distinctive a discernation about dialogue!).

And the realization that all is not what it seems.

Because I have seen so many, the death scene of William H. Macy particularly strikes home with me. It is clear, it is abrupt, it is disjointed. "Remember the time?"

I bought this VHS tape in 1992 from Tower, as it was marked $92.95. A wonderful movie then and now.

First off, I want to say that I simply could not agree more with the review written by Glenn Gallagher, but I think his 3 star rating is a bit too high.

I really enjoy some of David Mamet's work and was thrilled to find a Criterion release of one of his films that I had never heard of before.

I went into this so excited. David Mamet - Joe Mantegna - William Macy - Ving Rhames in a movie exploring a crime and dealing with issues of faith. How could have I never heard of this before?

Unfortunately the dialogue on this movie is very heavy handed and many times comes across literally like people are reading from a script for a play, (especially when Macy and Mantegna are in the car driving together). It is jarring, bizarre and frankly distracting. As the aformentioned reviewer mentioned before, no one talks to each like that in real life. I suppose if the entire movie was made/written this way, that would be one thing. But the jumping back and forth between "is this a movie/is this a play" takes away from the momentum.

MINI-SPOLIER ALERT

Also, Mantegna's character almost instanteously makes a leap from not caring about his heritage to caring, nearly at the drop of a hat. Why the sudden change? It's not exactly like the folks who won him over did so by digging deep and engaging in many stirring conversations. They literally just asked him who he really was a couple of times and Whammo - insta-conversion to the cause. Next thing you know Mantegna's character is willing to firebomb buildings. Huh? Just not enough meat on those bones for me to buy into the conversion. Sorry.

END SPOILER

Any way, seeing how many folks have had this film resonate with them, I don't imagine this review will be a very popular one. With the recent sale on Criterion Collection DVDs, I almost just up and put this one in the cart and bought it based on the story line, the actors and the reviews here. I am so glad I didn't now.

I guess the main purpose of my review is to tell you to rent this one first before buying. For most, this movie appears to be very appealing and I obviously don't take any issues with that. Art speaks to us all in different ways. For me, this movie was a big time disappointment.

Some David Mamet films have incredible notoriety amongst the literate set (Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, House of Games). His 2 Oscar noms (Wag the Dog, The Verdict) as well as his non-nominated script for The Untouchables have him firmly established with Hollywood's power base as well.

For my money, the oft-overlooked Homicide is a true Mamet gem--startling in its genius.

Put simply, Homicide is a revealing look at a man's journey into himself. Many will be distracted by the subject matter and tune out, but try to hang on.

Joe Mantegna's Bobby Gold is a tough cop who denies his Jewish lineage, until a low priority murder investigation into an aged Holocast survivor forces him to re-evaluate his entire existence. The resulting destruction of the man is cruel and never-ending,...and brilliant.

William H. Macy, an until-now bit player, gets a well-deserved promotion to #2 man among the strong supporting cast as Gold's partner and sounding board.

The intricacies of the plot, the subtleties of the subtext, as well as the perfunctory Mamet attention to detail may mean a second, or third look is necessary for the viewer to get straight with what's going on------- but take the time, if you can, it just keeps getting better and better.

I think David Mamet is brilliant, actually, just not in film-making, but in the writing of theatrical plays. The problem with this movie is that it looks exactly like a play that has been converted to a movie. The dialogue is incredibly artificial (nobody talks like that in real life), the acting very strange and contrived, and the main point of the film turns out to be a red herring.

I really do like "literate" films, but I guess Mamet is an acquired taste. Unfortunately, I found the film just mediocre when all is said and done. Apologies to all the Mamet fans in the world. However, he has made lots of other good movies, this one just didn't hit the mark.

Here is David Mamet's third film as a director, a film I had never heard of until The Criterion Collection announced plans to release it recently. Here's a film that, even with it's title, presents itself as a murder-mystery. It's this false presentation that will leave many viewers when they realize it's a character study masquerading as a murder-mystery. Yes, because when it's over, you realize the film's main character is much more of a mystery than anything else going on.

Joe Mantegna plays Robert Gold, a hostage negotiator/detective working in the homicide squad. En route to investigate a big case, Gold happens on the scene of a homicide. An elderly Jewish woman has been murdered. Gold doesn't have much time for this case, despite being Jewish himself but, much to his dismay, he's taken off the big case and assigned to investigate the homicide of the elderly woman.

This synopsis does give the impression of a pretty straight-forward detective story, but what Mamet puts his focus on is instead the internal conflict of the character. Gold is Jewish and should have some strong feelings about the elderly woman's murder, but he's a policeman first and a Jew last. It's this inability to put his priorities in perspective that forms the core of this story. Make no mistake about it though...This internal conflict is not explored in subtle terms. Mamet is rather heavy-handed with it.

There are some great performances here though, especially by Mantegna. This performance makes me question how Mantegna never became a big marquee-name. His performance is masterful in the way he captures the inner turmoil of the Gold character. Not just any actor could pull off the role. William H. Macy is good too as Gold's partner Tim Sullivan.

Actor's need to bring their A-game when working with a Mamet script due to the nature of his dialogue. It's not Shakespearean but it's written almost like modern poetry and not any actor could deliver it convincingly. Mamet writes dialogue that can't simply be recited, but must be delivered and the actors he used in Homicide have adapted to this and managed to deliver the dialogue as if delivered from their own thoughts.

Kudos also to the cinematography by the famous Roger Deakins and the dark, haunting, ominous, and Oscar-worthy musical score by Alaric Jans. His score compliments every scene while adding a dramatic punch to it.

Even being the character study it is, Homicide is still a murder-mystery, but a methodical one, not a shoot 'em up, action-packed type. Not everyone will be entertained by it but it is a powerful movie, simply one that requires patience from the viewer.

GRADE: B+

This is a great film, and one of the few in the ever-shrinking list of films I want on DVD but are not released. I'm so tired of watching this on a crappy VHS, especially because the photography by Juan Ruiz-Anchia (also of glengarry glen ross)is so beautiful. Attention whomever owns the rights to this! Lets have a DVD!!
-note to amazon.com; it would be nice if there were a link as you have on many other titles to submit my email to be notified when this is available on DVD!

I have been winding down on enjoying the tv show CRIMINAL MINDS because it just doesn't seem to have the dramatic gravitas something like that should. So I remembered this film, which I saw when it first came out, and since it had one of the stars of the current tv show, I thought I'd watch it to compare.

Well, what a revelation. First and foremost, what a difference a first rate script, written by master playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, makes to our understanding of a subject like homicide. Second, pair master actors with such a screenplay, like Mantegna, Macey and Rhames, just to name a few, and watch true magic unfold.

This work is so complex that you are thinking long after of how many killings actually took place. There are the ones that are clearly homicides in the traditional sense of someone being shot and killed by someone else. Then there are far more interesting killings which occur because of the sheer nature of evil and its crazy cousin, happenstance. Thus, things like a broken gun holster which a cop never gets around to repairing assumes critical importance. Or a meeting at a specified time which one has forgotten about which involved preserving someone's life. Or one's apartness from the pack being honed in on as a weakness by a different pack of predators. Packs of predators and prey roam the streets in Mamet's work and they range from Israeli linked American Jew terrorists to denizens of black ghettos to the cops themselves.

I can see why this film is part of the Criterion collection, in short, and why a tv show like CRIMINAL MINDS never will be.

Very good-language is a little rough in areas, but it's an over-all good film. Anyone who likes crime drama should like this film.

Homicide is a rather odd entry in the cop film genre as it features a Jewish police detective forced to come to terms with his own faith - albeit filtered through David Mamet's uncompromising view of the world. It is not an easy film to pin down which may explain why it's not as celebrated as other Mamet films like House of Games - Criterion Collection or The Spanish Prisoner but it deserves to be ranked right up there with his best efforts. For years, Homicide has largely been available on VHS and now, thanks to the nice folks at the Criterion Collection, it is finally available on DVD.

There is an audio commentary by writer/director David Mamet and actor William H. Macy. Mamet points out that many of the actors playing cops worked with him during his early days in Chicago theater. Macy says that this was his first major role in a film and talks about how his style of acting changed when he met Mamet. The filmmaker talks about the origins of the project and how it started as a book but after hanging out with his cousin - a New York City cop - it gradually turned into a screenplay. These guys banter back and forth like the old friends that they are on this highly enjoyable track.

"Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing" features five Mamet regulars talking about their experiences with the filmmaker and their work on Homicide. Joe Mantegna says that many Mamet protagonists pursue excellence and that this was his take on Bobby Gold. He also describes Mamet's dialogue as hyper-real. Steve Goldstein describes Mamet as a generous director and talks about the filmmaker's take on acting. Ricky Jay says that he feels most comfortable with Mamet's dialogue and tells a story about how he struggled with a scene in Homicide. J.J. Johnston and Jack Wallace point out that Mamet writes for specific actors and tailors to their personality. They also talk about how they met and first worked for Mamet.

"Gag Reel" is an amusing collection of blown lines and actors goofing around on set.

Finally, there are four T.V. spots.