making your first feature film ai n't easy .
assemble a decent , if not , strong cast , as writer / director robert moresco has done with one eyed king , and you 're already ahead of the game . but rehash old plot lines , tired dialogue , and standard clich ?
s , and a well - intentioned effort such as this one could jeopardize your chance at a second feature film .
how many more movies do we need about a rough neighborhood full of lifelong friends hopelessly turned to crime or worse ?
the enormous catalog of such movies might dissuade a filmmaker from making yet another , but here we have it .
again .
five irish kids in nyc 's hell 's kitchen make an overemotional pact over some stolen rings on an anonymous rooftop .
with teary music . and slow motion .
in the film 's first scene .
the kids grow up to be fairly worthless adults , unable or unwilling to make their way out of the heat of the kitchen .
leading the clueless pack is william baldwin as a good - hearted guy who watches out for his buddies and is in tight with local mob head armand assante .
i 'd like to say that his character gets involved over his head in some sort of
blah , blah , blah , but all we seem to get are little tastes of possible plot points .
he 's concerned about buddy jason gedrick 's heroin abuse .
he sticks up for jim breuer after he impregnates baldwin 's character 's sister .
he looks into who might be pushing the most moronic - looking counterfeit cash ever made ( a genuinely funny touch ) .
but none of this ever really amounts to anything .
it seems that moresco 's greater concern is to provide that intangible " slice of life " , that flavor of the neighborhood that everyone 's been trying to evoke since scorsese 's early work .
so , we get the drunk guys , hugging and singing together at the local bar , to prove to us that they really love each other .
( do people actually do this ! ? )
we get a lot of tough street talk -- usually mumbled for effect -- and a whole lot of the f - word , whether it sounds like it fits or not .
we also get a handful of good actors in small roles that seem to lack purpose .
bruno kirby , chazz palminteri , you know , guys you 've seen in movies just like this one before .
assante is intelligent casting as the man that everyone fears , and baldwin 's performance is adequate , but most of the rest of the cast jump into the tough guy persona
so thoroughly that it 's almost funny .
moresco ,
a theater guy and sometimes tv writer ( including the series falcone ) , obviously labored over this one as anyone might a first child , but the content is probably too personal . as a result , the movie 's style is heavy - handed , in need of a considerable amount of toning down .
nearly every time an action by the grown up gang recalls something they did as kids , moresco reminds us -- boy does he remind us . with slow dissolves to the earlier scene , running in slow motion , complete with dialogue from the present , just in case we do n't comprehend the link to the past .
moresco needs to either trust his audience 's intelligence , or have more faith in his own presentation rather than beat us over the head with it .
his next project should have a little more personal distance , and a lot more subtlety .
if he actually gets that chance .
reviewed as part of our 2001 boston film festival coverage ( feature story coming soon ) .
Output: N