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Vincent Lemarca (Deniro) lost his own father at a young age due to a criminal act that wasn’t entirely his fault. He managed to stick it out and deal with the pressures of having this over his head. He grew up to be a cop, and a father himself. Now he his aging, and things have not always gone according to plan. His wife left him, did not allow him to see his own son and his own has grown up in a world filled with drugs and violence. When Vincent learns that his son Joey (Franco) is the prime suspect in a murder mystery he begins to realize that this may be his last chance to save his son.
The opening sequence was brutally intense, Francos character of Joey, stumbling around, trying to sell off his possessions simply to find enough cash for his next hit. After Joey finds himself on the hook for murder he tries so desperately to get himself out of town and out of harm’s way. He also knows that anyone looking for him may just in fact go after his ex girlfriend and his son.
Robert Deniro has done some exceptional movies, such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. They were gripping, both mentally and physically. This film was completely different, it was slower paced, driven by the surroundings and not necessarily the characters it centers around. Deniro being the lead, managed at some points to make a complete mockery of the message behind this film. Yes his performance was still fantastic, but somewhere down the line Deniro lost his magical touch of being able to turn anything into movie gold. I wanted an emotionally heart wrenching portrayal of a father who gave his all for his son, instead what I got was a portrayal of a father who was so easily disconnected and so painfully unaware it was annoying to watch. I know this isn’t Deniros fault, because he didn’t write the script, but the whole erasing your past life and not telling your new partner anything idea just grew way to thin even when being acted out by the legendary Robert Deniro.
James Franco took the serious parts away from Deniro. He played a down and out drug addict, who wasnt a bad kid, he just got mixed in with the wrong crowd and was trying to find his way back. This is what is so painfully real about this film. We all have at one point known a Joey Lemarca which is just a constant reminder of how negative the world can be at times. I don’t want to say I know a lot about addiction and the criminal underworld. I dont have any real clue of how it works. But I have seen and read some real stories and I know that Francos performance was realistic. There is praise for this performance in almost everything I have read about the film. With a performance like this, the actor wants us to feel the characters pain and understand that he is in fact a good person, and Franco makes us see that in Joey. As the film progresses we almost want Joey to escape town, start a new life and get clean, but secretly we all know life in fact does not happen that way. Joey may get clean, but he will never escape the issues at hand. It is a sad look into every day street life.
Overall a solid film, the story grips you, James Franco makes it come alive, and even with all the clichéd aspects from Deniro and the writers, it somehow manages to keep true to life and that is what makes this a good film in the end.
7/10
