Going into this film, I was much more interested in the Stuart
Gordon part of the equation than the David Mamet part, but for better or worse
it seems to be Mamet so thoroughly that he might as well have directed it
himself. William H. Macy, (a veteran
interpreter of Mamet’s plays), stars as a man who decides to leave his wife one
evening and embarks on an odyssey through Manhattan’s underworld in search of
love, sex and meaningful experience, but mostly sex. Another Mamet regular, Joe Mantegna, makes a
brief appearance as an unabashedly racist acquaintance who sets off the
sub-theme of racial anxiety in Macy’s character. These guys are envious, it seems, of what
they see as the black man’s freedom of obligation to behave responsibly. I was keenly involved with this episodic film
up until its second half, at which point it began to seem rather jokey, by
which I mean that events tend to happen because of the points Mamet wants to
make, not because of his interest in the characters, the milieu, or any faith
in the audience’s intelligence. (I don’t
believe in political correctness, but the incessant un-ironic use of the word
“nigger” by middle-class men struck me as a mere shock tactic. Real racists are careful to veil their
opinions in proper terminology; the only people who talk like this are David
Mamet characters.)
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