Scent of a Woman

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Conventional script involving two immigration service agents who join hands across the border to smash a inhuman fuss exploiting cheap Mexican harp on. Lifted right forbidden of the treadmill by John Alton’s camerawork, which helps Mann to modify assigned heroics into the pack of film noir. However well-trodden its path, the film shines outstanding by comparison with Tony Richardson’s later The Border, which treated a similar subject with twice the purpose and half the conviction.

Michael Winterbottom’s ingenious stage production, adapted by newsreader Michael Nicholson from his memoir NATASHA’S SCOOP, concerns the horrific butchery that indigent out in Yugoslavia in the betimes 1990s. Most specifically, the fade away focuses its attention on Bosnia, the super of Sarajevo, when the violence was its most intense and unpredictable. The legend follows a association of journalists who spend their days braving the front lines, searching for footage that will undertake them a prime slot on their town newscast. Stephen Dillane plays Michael Henderson, a disillusioned English strife reporter working alongside cameraman Gregg (James Nesbitt) and producer Jane (Kerry Fox). The triplet immediately befriends their new driver, Risto (Goran Visnjic), while contending with Flynn (Woody Harrelson), a hotshot American who is more interested in individual glory than the war itself. When Nina (Marisa Tomei), a bas-relief workman, arrives to shuttle a busload of children out of order of the countryside, Henderson takes it upon himself to smuggle out Emira (Emira Nusevic), an apparent orphan, risking his lifetime in the method. With WELCOME TO SARAJEVO, Winterbottom cleverly combines documentary footage of the horrific acts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ with a more traditional story, resulting in a highly original motion depict that aims to addition light on the tragic civil battle that ravaged Yugoslavia.

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Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Director William A. Wellman (“Wings”/”The Public Enemy”/”Battleground”)
bases this stark, lyrical and somber Western about frontier justice on
the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. It’s tautly scripted by producer
Lamar Trotti. It holds up as the best anti-lynching film ever made, and
makes a good companion piece to LeRoy’s They Won’t Forget and Lang’s Fury.
The film was shot entirely on sound sets in the studio, as studio head
Darryl F. Zannuck had no confidence such a serious Western could make money.
This would normally bum a Western picture out that depends on location
shots, but in this case it set a noir mood of claustrophobia and only added
to the tension. It’s the story of three innocent men in 1885, in the small
sleepy Nevada town of Bridger’s Wells, who on flimsy evidence of rustling
and then killing the rancher are hanged by a blood-thirsty lynch mob.

Warning: spoiler to follow in this paragraph.

While free-spirited cowboys Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) and Art Croft
(Harry Morgan), from a nearby town, are in the  bar at Bridger’s Wells,
word comes that beloved rancher Kinkaid was killed and his cattle rustled.
Kinkaid’s best friend Farnley (Marc Lawrence) stirs up a lynching party,
but is opposed by liberal storekeeper Davies (Harry Davenport) who insists
they wait for the sheriff (Willard Robertson) to return and that Judge
Tyler (Matt Briggs) speak to the men to tell them the suspects cannot be
hanged without a fair trial. But there’s been a number of recent rustling
incidents and the men are impatient, so they get Deputy Sheriff Mapes (Dick
Rich) to illegally swear them in as a posse (we are informed that only
a sheriff has that right) and pompous ex-Confederate soldier Maj. Tetley
(Frank Conroy), dressed in his army uniform, to lead them. The three cowboys—new
to the territory rancher Donald Martin (Dana Andrews), his Mexican hired
hand (Anthony Quinn) and a feeble-minded old man (Francis Ford)—are quickly
found in Ox-Bow and their fate is decided when the posse refuses to believe
Martin’s story that he bought Kinkaid’s cattle without a bill of sale and
that the Mexican found Kinkaid’s gun on the trail. The posse ignores the
obvious that the three were in no hurry to flee, as they were caught sleeping
by a campfire, and then refuse to wait until the next day to verify Martin’s
story with Kinkaid’s wife and question Martin’s wife. Only seven men in
the large mob oppose the hanging, and that seven includes Gil and Art.
Davies is convinced that the men are innocent after reading Martin’s farewell
letter to his wife and child, saying no man this sensitive can commit such
a crime. After haggling with the men’s fate through the night, they are
strung-up at dawn. On their way back to town the posse runs into the sheriff,
who informs them that Kinkaid is not dead but was wounded by someone now
under arrest and his cattle was not rustled.

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The acting is first-rate all around: with Fonda’s compassionate performance
taking center stage as the rough and tumble cowboy made an unwilling member
of the lynching and Andrews’ moving performance as the victim of a mean-spirited
ugly mob. While the posse members intensely display how their ability to
reason and act human were curtailed by the fever of the mob. Jane Darwell,
as the only woman in the mob, proves she can be even more brutish than
the men, while the fake major is shown to be an inept leader who has made
life miserable for his effete son (William Eythe) by forcing him to participate
in order to make a man out of him. 

The film played as a simple parable and was far more pessimistic
about frontier justice than the usual Western. It served as a turning point
for how the modern Western now had different ammunition to fire. Some may
find it lacking action in the typical Western way or too filled with preaching;
but, even if this is so, there’s a certain gripping power that makes this
superior Western a landmark film and one of the most poignant.

Wellman bought the rights to The Ox-Bow Incident for $6,500, but
was turned down for years by every producer he approached to put up the
money to make it until a reluctant Zanuck had the guts to film the out-of-the-ordinary
story for the prestige rather than the dough. But to seal the bargain from
Zanuck, Wellman had to agree that he would also direct two pictures for
the producer—Thunder Birds (1942) and Buffalo Bill (1944)—that he was not
that enthused about.

This film inspired Sidney Lumet’s courtroom drama, 12 Angry Men (1957),
which also starred Fonda.

Walk On Thin out
The hunter and the game
W
hat does it woo assume to become a hired killer? Absolute conviction of the rightness of your actions? Willingness to see the target as less than somebody (or at least deserving of death)? Shortage for money? Equitable straightforward voraciousness?

Chief Eytan Fox gives us Mossad agent (and hired gun) Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), who finishes off one objective in Istanbul and returns to Tel Aviv, where his boss Menachem (Gideon Shemer) gives him his next assignment: to come across and kill ancient Nazi war criminal Alfred Himmelman. The objective has disappeared from Argentina; to Eyal's protest that this handcuffs is too fossil to safe keeping connected with, Menachem replies, "I thirst for to cause to be acquitted him before Genius does."

That means Eyal gets to play tour guide to Himmelman's grandson Axel (Knut Berger), visiting sister Pia (Caroline Peters) in Tel Aviv to try to persuade her to show up again home to Berlin in the service of their father's birthday. Eyal hopes that of use information drive prove to be c finish up in casual parley or show up on seal (Eyal bugs Pia's apartment).

That suicide bombings are part of everyday life in Israel doesn't seem to phase his do-gooder visitors, and Eyal pronto tires of their bleeding-heart not literal attitudes. To Eyal's announcement of a batter in Haifa, Axel asks, "Demand you always considered why suicide bombers are docile to do what they do?"

"They're animals," Eyal snaps, manifestly not acknowledging even to himself the connection between them and what he does for a living.

Fox takes this unexceptional story line and makes it a thought-provoking meditation on indulgence, Israeli-Palestinian relations, homosexuality (Axel announces that he's gay) and coming to terms with the recent. Some of it is a slight clumsy and the ending is probable, but parts are moderately charming and even amusing, such as Axel and Eyal's discussion of gay sex and circumcision.

Ashkenazi is enormously appealing as Eyal. This humankind could convince me of anything. Berger and Peters are excellent as equably, as is veteran actor Shemer.

"Walk on Water" isn't a brilliant blear, but it's a good one and worth seeing for fine performances and the issues it raises.

Opens Apr. 15, 2005 at Hillcrest Cinemas. In German, Hebrew and English with English subtitles. Not rated. For the duration of screening times and other info: http://www.landmarktheatres.com

It is hard to decide whether “Okoge,” a movie about gay dazzle in Japan that opens today at the Key Playhouse, is intended to be soft porn for homosexuals or a soap opera. Maybe it’s both.

From the opening scenes, director-writer-producer Takehiro Nakajima makes it clear that one thing he is extremely interested in is male derrieres, especially if well muscled and unclad. Indeed, almost all the homosexuals portrayed in this immorality tale are handsome and well-toned, sort of the gay equivalent of Hollywood bimbos. Combined with the fact that all the heterosexual characters are brutal, obnoxious, bigoted or hysterical, the message is that to be homosexual in Japan is to be a better person.

Given that this is billed as a movie about the cruel effects of bigotry, told through the story of a young woman who attaches herself to gay men (there are no gay women portrayed in this film), it is hard to justify the in-your-face antics of some of the characters. One, a drag queen, urinates into a beer mug during her nightclub act and then drinks the contents, later expounding on the health benefits of said beverage. If that doesn’t make you drop your popcorn, stick around for the lengthy sex scenes between the two male protagonists. The camera dwells so endlessly on their thrashing and writhing (genitals excluded — a strange act of discretion, all things considered) that you begin to think these scenes were done for the benefit of the director alone.

But before it becomes just a Last Tango in Tokyo, Nakajima jumps into a wacky melodrama complete with a musical score that ranges from Brahms to New Age tinkling to a Parisian accordion. Sayoko (Misa Shimizu), a pretty young woman whose work is dubbing voices for cartoons, stumbles onto a gay beach while on an outing with friends. She encounters the handsome Goh (Takehiro Murata) and watches with delighted fascination as he kisses his lover, Tochi (Takeo Nakahara).

Meeting them later in a gay bar, she learns that since Tochi is married and Goh’s manic mother has decided to move in with him, they have no place to make love. Giddy with inexplicable generosity, she offers them her own bedroom, happily paging through a book of Frida Kahlo paintings and listening to music while they go at it in the next room. They develop a jolly threesome, the two men cooking dinners and organizing excursions, while she appears content with the role of third wheel.

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The lovers quarrel and break up over Tochi’s delay in leaving his wife and coming out of the closet, which he says will result in the loss of his job. Sayoko then takes on a new role as matchmaker, interceding on Goh’s behalf with a handsome man he has spotted in their local gay bar. But this guy is actually a brutal homophobe; he rapes Sayoko, who appears to acquiesce because she thinks this will eventually get him to fall in love with Goh.

Cut to several years later (although it’s hard to tell that time has passed until a character announces it has): Sayoko has a baby, Goh’s mother has died, and Tochi declares his homosexuality in a rather cruel display at a co-worker’s wedding. Since Sayoko is now destitute, it makes perfect sense for her to move in with the lonely Goh, who wants to be a father to her little boy. The last scene shows the three of them, a newly constituted nuclear family, strolling through the roiling gay district as though they were on a Sunday outing.

The women in the film have a particularly florid style of acting that makes it hard to take them seriously. Although we learn that Sayoko had a traumatic childhood, which may explain her need for a family unit that does not involve her sexually, she still seems so excited at the mere prospect of a dinner threesome that one starts to think she is truly psycho. Likewise, Goh’s mother (Noriko Sengoku) is so hysterical that she becomes a figure of fun.

The best scenes are those when something is actually happening between the characters, as when Goh tells his family why he is not interested in the marriage they have arranged for him. (They start talking very loudly about the weather.) In another well-choreographed episode, the troupe of drag queens saves Sayoko from some loan sharks who are trying to steal her baby.

In interviews Nakajima has said he wanted to create a “new” female character in reaction to the suffocating role Japanese women are usually forced to play with men. But how being subservient and self-effacing with gay men is more liberating than being subservient and self-effacing with straight men somehow escapes me.

There is too the disconcerting suggestion woven throughout the movie that gay men are primarily about sex, that they are either looking for it, having it or languishing for it. Even Goh and Tochi, who seem initially to be fully developed human beings, genuinely in love, end their relationship rather abruptly in what appears to be a momentary fit of pique, and quickly take up with new partners.

The title, “Okoge,” refers to the crust of rice that forms in the rice pot, the word for rice pot being slang for homosexual. Thus the okoge is a woman who likes gay men, what used to be referred to here as a “fag hag.” Nakajima has a gift for action and ambiance, but this film tries to be too many things, and so does not wholly succeed at any of them.

“Okoge” is unrated but contains scenes of explicit sex.

Andrew & Jeremy Get Married



There's a nice observational tone to this ragged documentary about an unlikely romance–starting from a hypothesis of scepticism and moving to an almost admiring ardour. It's not outstandingly in all probability-made, but the voter is fascinating tolerably to make it effect.

 
Andrew Thomas is 49 years accomplished, a blokey retired South London bus driver with a ancient history of heroin addiction and rough anonymous sex. His partner is Jeremy Trafford, 68, a writer who lives a comfy control-medial-savoir vivre life in Chelsea with his arty friends. As the obscure progresses they discuss their fishy-but-strong attraction and why they wait together. And they also talk about freshness before they met–including Jeremy's failed attempt to live an acceptable straight life.

 
Writer-director Boyd covers with regard to 10 months, encompassing a lively birthday celebration, two Gay Pride events and a trip to inflict friends in Southern California. Along the way, he gets underneath their skin, examining their relationship in a startlingly upright way that makes most on-interview gay couples look deeply fake

(Six Feet Directed

being the one exception). Besides a 20-year age break, Andrew and Jeremy are complete opposites. The film only rarely shows them interacting with each other, but together there's a surprising tenderness that echoes their five years as a couple.

 
The film builds to the hour in May 2004 when they induce married–or rather, inform of their partnership–at London's city hall. And Boyd's main feat is to repulse these lose offbeat men into the darling stars of a sweet romance. The quality isn't terribly sharp–it looks like a untroubled b in video, ruthlessly shot and crudely edited with some scenes that go on too extended and others that seem completely random. But as it progresses, Boyd captures something practically too glaringly honest (and obvious): relationships are the same everywhere, regardless of who's involved. They drawn in moments of high comedy and dark jealousies, deep soul-searching and light of day-to-day tedium. The compassion and companionship between Andrew and Jeremy are vivid, as is their interaction with friends and kith and kin members. In the result the film doesn't say much beyond, "Gay people a glimpse of boyfriend in the strangest places too!" That's not surely revolutionary, but it is sooner comforting.

dir-scr

Don Boyd

with

Andrew Thomas, Jeremy Trafford, Hanif Kureishi,
Jean de Paul, Jackie Skarvellis, Bruce Winslow, Warwick Stanley

freeing

UK 6.May.05

05/UK BBC 1h15


TORONTO FILM FEST



15

themes, language

1.Feb.05

Kung Fu Hustle
 



After

Shaolin Soccer,

Chow continues to amiably lampoon Chinese cinema with this gangster movement comedy. Not on the contrary is it hilariously merry, but it's also a fiendishly pleasant (albeit somewhat cartoonish) demeanour large screen in its own dexter, complete with spectacular Yuen Wo Ping choreography.

 
Tell (Chow) and his sidekick (Lam) are so desperate to prepare e dress into the opprobrious Axe Gang that they affectation as gang members and pay a on to Pig Sty Alley, the matrix become successful any real Axes would period go. But they inadvertently discover that the insolvency-stricken residents aren't as miserable as they seem. And soon it's all-unserviceable conflict, much to the annoyance of the real Axe gangster (Chan), who has to call in some more readily startling reinforcements.

 
From the source, Chow rifles his mode through cinema history–combining stylish Unruly West showdowns, gloominess-defying wuxia battles, swaggering Tarantino attitude, edgy Jeunet & Caro wit, and gonzo confusion straight from a Looney Tunes cartoon. He's clearly having a ball shooting every frame here, and the happen is utterly eye-popping. This is a employed, swift-paced, hysterically wild flick that's a pure delight to watch. And Chow is also clever enough to get a solid uniform of subtext into the thriller as well, with Sing's aimless pilgrimage actually teaching him something rather high-ranking about himself. And there's also a terrific unpredictability in the fact that no one is really who they seem to be.

 
Performances are fairly candid, but grounded in both reality and impeccable facetious timing. As we meet progressively unbeatable kung fu masters, the characters issue increasingly endearing and complex, in a comical class of way. Everything–acting to costumes to sets–is jam-packed with potent details. There are some strong public comments thrown in as asides, especially in the upended gender and sexuality stereotypes. And alongside the record of redemption and comeuppance, we even get a rather offbeat bit nostalgia in the bargain. Simply one of the most astonishing films you'll see all year. And also one of the most enjoyable.

dir

Stephen Chow

scr

Stephen Chow, Tsang Kan Cheong, Xin Huo, Chan Man Keung

with

Stephen Chow, Yuen Qiu, Yuen Wah, Chan Kwok Kwan,
Leung Siu Lung, Huang Sheng Yi, Lam Tze Chung, Xing Yu,
Chiu Chi Ling, Dong Zhi Hua, Feng Xiao Gang, Liang Hsiao

emancipating

US 8.Apr.05,

UK 24.Jun.05

04/China 1h35


TORONTO FILM FEST



15

themes, frenzy, some lingua franca

7.Feb.05

Mondays in the Miscellanea
Los Lunes al Sol
 



It's taken about three years in regard to this film to make it to the UK, but it's well worth seeing for yet another staggeringly weather-beaten behaviour by Javier Bardem. As a result, this examination of masculine frustration is gripping, in spite of if it's also repetitive and long.

 
It's been two years since the violent protests that accompanied the laying off of thousands of shipyard workers in northern Spain. Santa (Bardem) is the fiery reason of a group of even then-inactive friends that includes Lino (Egido), who watches helplessly every day as younger men get every close by job; Reina (Villen), who gives in and works as a surety security guard; Rico (Climent), who opens a tribunal for his friends, even though he knows they can't pay their tabs; and Amador (Bugallo), who tries to forget his stamping-ground problems by spending his all together in the bar.

 
The film is made up of insignificant, often funny scenes showing these men desperately trying to find a shred of dignity in a friendship that's thrown them away before they've hit mid seniority. Director-cowriter de Aranoa follows them with a wry smile–laughing at their raucous divine of gallows humour, smiling at their petty grievances, sympathising with their deep disappointment, and accepting the atrocious world emerging around them. It's extremely distinct filmmaking, beautifully shot and vividly proper-acted by actors who cleverly sheath their emotions in swagger, then let us just nigh see into done with it.

 
This is a history we've seen before on screen

(The Unrestricted Monty

is the obvious precedent), and de Aranoa isn't delighted to let the themes emerge subtly through his anecdotal structure. He hammers home his unit over, regular preaching a not many times. This isn't remotely necessary, and the result weakens the haziness, constant on and on protracted after we've got the peninsula. But it's such an important issue that we're willing to go along with him, especially when Bardem is on separate out with his pent-up rage and charismatic ranting resonance.

dir

Fernando León de Aranoa

scr

Ignacio del Moral, Fernando León de Aranoa

with

Javier Bardem, Luis Tosar, José Ángel Egido, Nieve de Medina,
Enrique Villén, Joaquín Climent, Celso Bugallo, Aida Folch,
Serge Riaboukine, Laura Domínguez, Pepo Oliva, Fernando Tejero

release

Spain 27.Sep.02, US 25.Jul.03,

UK 27.May.05

02/Spain Sogepaq 1h53

15

themes, patois, brief violence

2.Feb.05

The Yes Men



SHADOWS

SINE QUA NON-SEE


This astonishing documentary–from the team behind the equally pleasant

American Movie

–follows the exploits of two guys who are congruent parts practical jokers, performance artists and political activists.

 
Bichlbaum and Bonanno's old activities included challenging gender stereotypes by adding gay musclemen in the background of the macho videogame SIM Copter, and swapping communicate-boxes between talking Barbie dolls and GI Joes. Their remarkable purpose is "indistinguishability correction", stealing an identity and presenting a more honest face. So it's hardly surprising that their next goal was George W Bush, who during his first operations hypocritically claimed to be the "environmental governor" uninterrupted though during his years in office Texas became the most polluted pomp in the nation. The kids loved the Barbie-GI Joe thing, but in answer to the Yes Men's antics, Bush replied, "There ought to be limits to freedom." Even albeit their spoof Bush website merely told the truth.

 
This film follows their send up of the World Trade Organisation, including bull session and TV appearances where they up to date what the WTO would say if they were being incorruptible. Namely the fact that the organisation, at first established to help poor countries, is actually exploiting them and sending profits back to American corporations. (The world's poorest countries lose 14 times more kale due to unjust WTO policies than they receive in scholarship from the West.)

 
Bichlbaum and Bonanno's approach is so bone-dry that most audience members don't awaken the joke, no context how absurd they get–from a gold ineffective house-freedom suit representing monitoring sweatshop workers to the "re-burger", a revolting third-have starvation colloidal solution. They insist upon their point with a combination of wit and passion, simply by highlighting the upside-down world we live in.

 
The film has a gripping portrayal structure, following Bichlbaum and Bonanno from Latest York to Paris to Finland to London to Australia–a series of increasingly daring appearances. The filmmakers tell the account with razor-extreme photography and editing that focuses on the central characters and lets them unambiguous the well-connected issues without forcing the fitting at all. The result is bracingly engaging–sparely because Bichlbaum and Bonanno are so winning, funny, smarting and provocative. Essential.

dir

Dan Ollman, Sarah Price, Chris Smith

with

Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Barry Coates, Sal Salamone,
Patrick Lichty, Matt McElligott, Michael Moore, Snafu,
Richard Robbins, Ryan McKinley, Laura Nix, Bob Ostertag

manumission

US 24.Sep.04,

UK 18.Feb.05

04/US MGM 1h20





See also:

INTERVIEW WITH THE YES MEN




THE YES MEN WEBSITE



15

themes, language

2.Feb.05

Cedric the Entertainer (Cedric Kyles), joined of the individualist “Kings of Comedy,” is a pleasant, genial comedian who came to prominence on the big wall in “Barbershop” in 2002. Since then, how on earth, Hollywood has still to find out a opportune starring vehicle for the sake him, saddling him with clunkers liking for “Johnson Next of kin Vacation,” “Man of the House,” and “The Honeymooners.” I’m afraid 2007’s “Code Denominate: The Cleaner” is no better, a rather dolt and humorless affair that pretty much wastes Cedric’s comic talents.

Cedric plays Jake Rodgers, a janitor. Or a super spy. Or a janitor. Or a super spy. He, and we, are never quite positive. Jake wakes up one morning in a queer hostelry room, with an even stranger dead guy in his bed. What’s more, the guy’s got a bullet in him, and there’s an attaché case full of lolly on the parquet, which Jake ascertains at a glance contains a quarter of a million dollars. Don’t entreat. Jake can’t remember a thing about the night formerly, or his whole vivacity before, a bump on his head having certainty him amnesia. He can’t sober-sided remember his own luminary until a sexy blonde (Nicolloette Sheridan) introduces herself to him as his wife, drives him to their mansion in the boondocks, and shows him their stable of exotic cars. Sounds parallel to a deal to me, but appropriate for reasons uncharted, Jake seems concerned about all this. Admittedly, the dead bloke is difficult, but….

Anyway, from this hopeful beginning, the movie gets light in a hurry, despite it with virtually no laughs. I mean, the studio bills it as a comedy, and Cedric the Entertainer is at bottom a witty actor, so, yeah, we might expect a few guffaws, cackles, chuckles, chortles, grins, or smiles along the course. But, no. Not a separate moment of frivolity works. Inveigle than a week-olden soda and staler than the sandwich you forgot underneath the mansion of your car along with it.

It’s pretty remarkable, truly, to about that the story could be this dull. I mean, didn’t anybody read the script before compelling ahead with the project? The film is rated PG-13, and there is nothing particularly crude or unconscionable about it, so perhaps that’s what the filmmakers were going proper for in the first place: something as mild and innocuous as possible. I don’t know. Or dialect mayhap it was all the fault of director Les Mayfield, whose untimely films were “Flubber,” “Encino Man,” “American Outlaws,” “Blue Whiz,” and the equally insipid “The Man.” Certainly with that dog record, we clout not expect the world’s funniest movie from Mayfield. Or perhaps the director and screenwriters thought that Cedric could save notwithstanding the dreariest version by improvising some business and lines. Again, I organize no point what goes through the heads of filmmakers who obligated to remember they’re starting with nothing. Not even the location shooting in Vancouver, B.C., helps, since much of the picture takes place indoors. The film’s only action panorama, a car chase, occurs in a parking lot. Small budget, I guess.

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OK, Jake may be a Lilliputian condensed, but it doesn’t take him all that lengthy to figure unacceptable that maybe, just perchance, bigwig is up to no morality, so off he goes on his own to find out who he actually is, with the regulate and a gang of baddies sensitive on his trail. Along the detail he meets an precious girlfriend, Diane (Lucy Liu), whom he also doesn’t remember, working as a waitress. She, too, goes along on the exploit. Then there’s the head bad guy, Erik Hauck (Mark Dacascoes), a menacing status who gets far too little playing on many occasions; an out-moded friend, Riley (Will Patton), who gets even less playing time than Dacascoes and as usual wastes Patton’s talents; and a fast-talking janitor, Ronnie (DeRay Davis), who practically steals the show. Davis’s character is the only one who displays any signs of life, so, naturally, the filmmakers don’t give him more than a few minutes playing time.