Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

“Mametspeak” sounds artificial to me, hyper-realist rather than “natural” with a superabundance of the “f-word.” I’ ambivalent about the movies David Mamet has directed, too. I was favorably impressed by the first “House of Games” (1987) and sorta liked “State and Main” (2000), sorta disliked “Oleanna” (1994). I thought much was good in the 1992 adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Glengarry Glen Ross,” actively disliked  the 1996 adatptation of “American Buffalo” directed by others,

I was interested in “Homicide” (1991) with the Mamet repertory company headed by Joe Mantegna as a Jewish homicide inspector and hostage negotiator, Bobby Gold. The Chicago police get the FBI to back off and he works on the mother of a black fugitive (Mary Jefferson) but is forced to work the case of the murder of an elderly Jewish shopkeeper.

The conventional cop drama switches tracks to the meaning of being Jewish in America (Gold cannot read Hebrew, but his Jewishness is thrown-up-in-his-face by coworkers and the fugitive (Ving Rhames with hair and less bulk but already plenty of presence). Turns out the dead storekeeper ran guns before Israel’s independence and that there is a mysterious Mossad operation going on (Joe’s acceptance of/by it strains plausibility).

Having painted himself into corner of ethnic confusion, he lets down his partner (twitchy Irish cop William H. Macy) and the mother he persuaded to help and the Mossad operatives. If he had a wife and kids, no doubt he’d let them down, too.

Roger Deakins (The Reader) provided moody neo-noir cinematography that was recognized with a LAFCA. Mamet provided some great lines to those who get shot, a tricky plot, and a weak ending. Mantegna delivers perhaps his best performance ever, grappling with internalized self-hatred as well as outspoken prejudices of others. He has less a torrent of words and more reaction shots and physical acting than most Mamet protagonists. (Joe smokes a lot.) He is a patsy for his police “brothers” and for those who have called on a dormant Jewishness, but being let down by those he thought he could trust is a hallmark of Mamet’s writing.

A gag reel seems inappropriate, but an interview with five actors about Mamet’s direction is fascinating. The commentary track of Mamet and Macy is anecdote-filled, short on analysis of what is on the screen. Mamet does not want to explain himself, but regards “Homicide” as the best movie he has directed (and the most cinematic, due to Deakins, I think).

Never has a broken strap had so central a role to a movie’s plot. Alas, the family-slayer who is going to explain evil to Joe disappears from the movie before doing so.

©2010, Stephen O. Murray

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD