Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
This is one of those titles that just doesn’t resonate for me on any level. Maybe it works once you’ve seen the film, but it doesn’t tell me anything about the film. I’m not even sure what genre it is, but if the contribution of Bobby Moresco (co-writer of CRASH) is any indicator, I’d expect “preachy.”
Thanks to our own MiraJeff, though, I’ve got a chance to see what the film’s all about, and it sounds like he’s still wrasslin’ with his own feelings about what he saw. Check it out...
Greetings AICN, MiraJeff here with a look at 10th and Wolf, the directorial debut of Bobby Moresco, co-writer of Crash. The film stars James Marsden as Tommy, a dishonorably discharged Marine who returns to the mean streets of Philly where he grew up as the son of a low-level mobster. It seems that even in Iraq, Tommy couldn’t escape his bad boy roots, and he gets kicked out of the service after punching out a fellow soldier and stealing a government vehicle. Now the feds (Brian Dennehy, Leo Rossi) have Tommy by the balls, not to mention his brother Vincent (Brad Renfro) and cousin Joey (Giovanni Ribisi), but they agree to let everyone off the hook if Tommy will wear a wire and help them bring down a pair of Mafia bosses, Matello (Dennis Hopper) and Reggio (Francesco Silva). If the plot sounds vaguely familiar, it's because the story is based on the real Donnie Brasco, FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, who has a cameo in the movie.
I'm still not sure where I stand on 10th and Wolf. It was entertaining and watchable, but the plot turns were never convincing and the writing is kind of lazy and generic, certainly not on the level of Crash. Like most movies, this one lives and dies with the acting, which on the whole was pretty impressive, although some performances careen waaay over-the-top, turning characters into mere stereotypical caricatures. The plot is a little convoluted but what do you expect from the guy who co-wrote Crash. (For the record, I wholeheartedly believe that Crash was the best picture of last year.) So let’s talk about the performances.
James Marsden is a guy who should be “there” but isn’t yet. I always thought his X-Men character was given the shaft, and I was glad to see him skip to the Superman franchise because I think he did a good job playing Richard White. Heck, I even liked the guy in The Notebook (yes, I saw it) and Gossip (a guilty pleasure). 10th and Wolf proves he can carry a movie and that he’s not just another forgettable pretty face. He’s not quite Gyllenhaal or even Hartnett, but the potential exists, especially if the right project comes along. I like the effort Marsden puts forth here and it pays off in spades because if we don’t care about his character, then this movie really falls apart.
Renfro is a classic case of Hollywood-it is. People love to talk about Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment but they always overlook Renfro, who gave one of the best children’s performances of all-time in The Client. Period, that’s that. His recent legal troubles have overshadowed some strong work in Bully and Law and Order: CI, and I guess he was just a case of too much too soon. However, Renfro may be the most guilty of going over-the-top and with Ribisi co-starring, that’s really saying something. I have to give the kid credit though for making Vincent more than just another dumb Mafia stereotype. He makes him a lovable loser who is always in his brother’s shadow. He’s a tragic character, like Fredo, Drama, and perhaps most like Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan, and believe me, I can’t believe I just typed that. So overall, I thought Renfro gave the most impressive performance, if only because I didn’t think he was capable of it anymore.
Ribisi’s performance redefines nuanced. He might as well be Rain Man, although to his credit, he made it work. See, I happen to like Ribisi as an actor, but I can totally understand how he might not be for everyone. For starters, he could use a friggin’ tan. This guy is whiter than Silas from The DaVinci Code. I swear to God I thought he was a chalk outline moving around in one scene. But this is definitely his meatiest role since Boiler Room and he bites right into it. Joey is the type of guy who relishes the spotlight, the shot-calling, the feeling of invincibility that his perceived position of power gives him. Ribisi gets a little carried away at times but that’s bound to happen because he’s a very histrionic actor. The bottom line is, he sells it.
Hopper doesn’t get the screentime to shine but that’s probably a good thing because he’s just not believable anymore, after popping up in about a half dozed DTV-movies where he’s stuck playing the same variation of one of his characters from Speed, Blue Velvet, and Super Marion Brothers. He’s ultimately wasted, no pun intended.
Perabo does the best work of her career but that’s not saying much and that doesn’t let her character off the hook for being so one dimensional. Perabo plays a take-no-shit bartender in a strip club and the Coyote Ugly comparisons are too easy make. She’s saddled with a horrible Philly accent and a no nudity clause. I still prefer her to Jennifer Garner though.
Lesley Ann Warren pops up as Joey’s cheating mother, and performs some of the film’s most dramatic, emotional scenes with ease. She’s an old pro and she’s good at what she does, I just wish she wasn’t always stuck playing the promiscuous older woman role, although for a 60 year-old woman, she’s still got a pretty decent body.
Dennehy always has some tricks up his sleeve but he didn’t make much of an impression. I was more surprised by Rossi, his quiet but more threatening partner. Salvi is also pretty good, but I think I was afraid of him because he reminded me of the rapist in Irreversible. The two actors who didn’t really work for me were Tommy Lee and Val Kilmer. The Motley Crue drummer appears as one of Joey’s henchmen but why cast him if you’re not gonna give him anything cool to do. He’s more of a distraction than anything else. All I could think about was that Pam & Tommy video.
And Kilmer, man oh man, what the hell is he doing in this movie. His scene was funny, sure, I’ll give him that, but totally, totally unnecessary, and this movie ran way too long as it was. Presumably Kilmer is there to add more weight to Tommy’s Iraq subplot, but the scene comes across self-indulgent and horribly out of place in a movie as serious as this. After this and his nearly unrecognizable (stellar as it was) turn as a weed sherpa in Entourage, Kilmer’s in danger of becoming a self-parody. He was probably doing Moresco a favor by lending his name to the movie, but as far as I’m concerned, that decision backfired.
10th and Wolf doesn’t reinvent the genre or anything, and my friend who I took to the screening absolutely hated it, but I was pulled into its criminal underworld where loyalties are tested and nothing is for certain. Moresco is a talent I’ll be keeping my eye on, and early word of mouth on his new TV show, The Black Donnelly’s (which just added Peter Greene- Zed from Pulp Fiction- to the cast) has been good, but after Crash and Million Dollar Baby, 10th and Wolf isn’t the guy’s shining hour. It’s buoyed by the strength of its performances and it’ll quench your thirst for violence, but as a crime/drama, it’s not especially memorable. It ain’t no motherfucking Snakes on a Plane, that’s for sure.
That’ll do it for me, folks. I’ve got a whole lot of articles brewing, including reviews of Invincible, Idlewild, Hollywoodland, The Science of Sleep, Farewell Bender, and Looking For Kitty, plus a script review of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest. Damn, that was a mouthful. Better get to it. ‘Til next time, this is MiraJeff signing off…
I dunno. I couldn’t even make it through the pilot script for THE BLACK DONNELLYS, and I’m not even going to go into my feelings about CRASH again. Thanks for the review, though, MiraJeff.
"Moriarty" out.
