God's Pocket Reviews

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was one of the last movies starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, I was still quite eager to check it out. Well, eventually, even though it turned out to be a decent watch, to be honest, it wasn't anything really amazing. With this directing debut, John Slattery did manage to create a nice and realistic mood but the story never really worked, I'm afraid. The first issue was that Leon was such a low-life douchebag, he pretty much got what he deserved and, as a result, it was pretty much impossible to care when his mother made a fuss about the fact that there was maybe something fishy about his death. Another awful character was this journalist played by Richard Jenkins. This guy was basically your typical pitiful drunk and to make us believe that a young and pretty woman would fall for him was just pretentious. In fact, his fling with Christina Hendricks's character was even more pathetic. However, fortunately, every time Philip Seymour Hoffman was on the screen, he pretty much nailed it. Indeed, even if most of the other characters were either lame or poorly developed, his character was interesting to follow, above all thanks to a solid  performance from the late actor. Furthermore, you can't ignore the parallel there was between the struggles faced by his character in this film and the struggles that Hoffman had to face in his own life at the time which made his performance even more spellbinding and even rather heartbreaking to behold. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is worth a look, if only to see Philip Seymour Hoffman shining one last time on the screen.