From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: REVIEW: HOFFA
Reply-To: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 15:17:14 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01656
Keywords: author=Maloney

				   HOFFA
		       A film review by Frank Maloney
			Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney

     HOFFA is a film directed by Danny DeVito, from a script by David
Mamet.  It stars Jack Nicholson, DeVito, Armand Assante.  Rated R for
violence.

     HOFFA is quite simply an amazing achievement.  It marks the
emergence of Danny DeVito as a director of the first rank.  It also
marks the reemergence of Jack Nicholson as a major actor, instead of
merely a major ham.  However, HOFFA is a tricky film to take in insofar
as DeVito and David Mamet, the writer, take no moral positions vis-a-vis
Jimmy Hoffa.  They provide us with a few texts to guide us, especially
when Hoffa tells a reporter, "You have to weigh what is lost and what is
gained."  Hoffa was the brilliant leader of the Teamsters Union who also
enmeshed his union with organized crime.  I should say that I am not
neutral myself on this subject, even if I am of two minds.  My father
was an associate of Hoffa and Dave Beck, his predecessor as president of
the Teamsters.  I actually met Hoffa when I was a child.  My father was
subpoenaed to appear before the McClellan Senate Labor Rackets Committee
and earned the undying enmity of Bobby Kennedy.  I am not neutral, be
warned.

     The story is a series of flashbacks, memories as Hoffa and his
longtime (and composite) sidekick (DeVito) wait for a rendezvous with
his secret Mafia partner.  We see how they met in the days when a driver
would be fired and blackballed for being pro-union; we witness an
exciting, bloody, brilliantly directed, horrible battle between
Teamsters and management goons.  We see the secret deal with the mob
that established the union's ascendency.  We see Hoffa's long and very
personal feud with Bobby Kennedy.  All of these scenes and the others
are filtered through the sidekick's eyes and loyalties.  The structure
ensures that DeVito gets at least as much screen time as Nicholson.  But
it also makes it possible to make a film that need not pretend
neutrality or to make judgments.  What we do see through DeVito's eyes
is a complex, tragically flawed, remote and enigmatic leader of
brilliance and a radical devotion to his cause.

     As Hoffa, Jack Nicholson is brilliant, perfect, inspiring.  He
becomes Hoffa.  Nicholson recedes until he is lost entirely.  It is the
performance of a lifetime.  He fully captures the drive and devils that
propelled Hoffa.  It is a performance of nuance and self-effacement.
And it is exciting to watch.

     DeVito does his usual job of being DeVito in his role as the
sidekick, venal, amoral, shy only the dirty laugh of most of his parts.
It's acceptable and it in no way competes with Nicholson.  

     However, as director, DeVito is a brilliant chance-taker and
problem-solver, producing a far less conventional biopic than
"non-Hollywood" Spike Lee's MALCOM X.  We have no childhood prologue, no
family life.  All we have is what the sidekick knows and sees of his
idol.  DeVito employs successfully split screens, creative transitional
devices, and other unconventional story-telling techniques.

     This, I should warn the squeamish, is a rough film: violence,
blood.  The f-word is just about the first one you hear.  There is
worse, too.

     I recommend HOFFA to the rest of you in the strongest of terms.
This is a masterpiece.

-- 
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney