TxMike A found this on Netflix streaming movies. I was anxious to see one more PS Hoffman movie.First a note about the title. There is a 3 square block area of mostly Irish-Americans in South Philadelphia called "Devil's Pocket", said to have originated with a local priest saying the neighborhood kids were so bad they would steal a chain out of the devil's pocket.So for this fictional story they used the name "God's Pocket" but it is a loose reference to the same area. The story involves men who steal to make their businesses profitable. For example Philip Seymour Hoffman as Mickey Scarpato runs a meat market but in one scene he and his friends intercept a refrigerated truck to steal the sides of beef. They don't seem like crooks, it is as if that is just a way to do business.The running theme in this movie involved Mickey's stepson mouthing off at work in his construction job and being killed by an older man hitting him with a pipe on the back of the head. Everyone lies and says it was an accident, a piece of equipment swung and hit him. But the mother, Christina Hendricks as Jeanie Scarpato, just "feels" that a cover-up in involved.This gets the local newspaper man involved, and he gets involved in more than the story. Then Mickey has an issue with the local mortician who convinces Jeanie that he needs the $6000 casket, for which Mickey can't pay. So the body ends up in the back of Mickey's refrigerated truck until he can somehow raise the cash.What makes the movie worthwhile is the script and the acting. It is a madcap, quirky, somewhat dark comedy, where the con men have to run off to Florida in the end and hope the cops never find them.

lakegrovefc The synopsis of this film is inaccurate. Mickey (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) does not try to cover up the death of his stepson. He actually does not care how he died or who might be responsible. He simply wants to get the funeral arranged, done and paid for to please his grieving wife. This proves much more difficult than he anticipates. His wife pressures him to find out what really happened so he gets some pretty nasty people involved. The setting is perfect, the characters believable and the film kept me entertained. This movie is definitely a black comedy/drama. Not for everyone, but if your sense of humor leans in that direction and you are not squeamish about profanity and blood, you should enjoy it.

blanche-2 I'll say this. Philip Seymour Hoffman, in spite of dying way too young, he left us many, many films in which to appreciate his great talent."God's Pocket" from 2014 is one of Hoffman's last films. It's an independent film, done in a natural, realistic style, about blue collar workers in a small town, most of whom are uneducated and scratching out a living. Hoffman plays Mickey Scarpato, whose rotten human being of a stepson is killed but the witnesses on the scene lie to the police. His wife, played by the stunningly beautiful Christina Hendricks, is devastated. Mickey gambles away a lot of money and then finds out the funeral home won't take credit. So he puts the body in a refrigerated truck and attempts to sell it.That sounds funny, and normally I would love this kind of humor, but there's an atmosphere of depression that hangs over this film so that it's hard to find humor even when there is any. Meanwhile, the boy's mother (Hendricks) is demanding to know what really happened, and gets a newspaperman (Richard Jenkins) involved. He of course falls for her immediately.Bette Davis said that today people want acting to be natural, but that real acting is larger than life. I happen to agree - there's just not enough here to keep me interested.The cast is very good and includes John Turturro, Joyce van Patten, and Eddie Marsan. Hoffman is terrific as a desperate man who is trying to do the right thing for his wife but just can't get it together.The film is a little too dark visually for me but it fits the mood. Depressing, but a funny ending.

l_rawjalaurence Set in a fictitious area of Philadelphia, GOD'S POCKET is the story of a down-at-heel area whose inhabitants struggle to make a living. Mickey Scarpato (Philip Seymour Hoffman) delivers meat and does little "jobs" on the side, aided and abetted by Arthur (John Turturro), who also runs a flower-shop with his wife. Mickey, married to Jeanie (Christina Hendricks), suffers a bereavement when Jeanie's son Leon (Caleb Landry Jones) meets a violent end at work, even though everyone protests it was an accident. Campaigning journalist Richard Shellburn (Richard Jenkins) of the local paper decides to investigate the case, but becomes far more interested in Jeanie than his work.Structurally speaking, John Slattery's debut feature contains strong echoes of PULP FICTION insofar as it portrays a world where random things happen and characters have very little control over events. Mickey tries to arrange an expensive funeral for Leon, but owing to a series of comic events - as well as his own gambling losses - he ends up with Leon's corpse in his butcher's van. The local newspaper subsequently reports that Leon has died twice. Arthur's flower-shop is menaced by two toughs out for revenge, but they are unexpectedly shot by his elderly wife who happens to keep a loaded shotgun on the premises for safety. Meanwhile Richard ends up writing a typically rhetorical piece on God's Pocket for his weekly column, and ends up getting beaten up by the local residents for his pains. No one, it seems, has control over their lives - which helps to explain why many residents seek solace in a seedy neighborhood bar at all times of the day.The film starts slowly: much of the dialog is indistinct, and punctuated with imprecations. Yet this is part of the film's point; in an area such as this verbal communication doesn't really matter. All the locals are out for what they can get, and are prepared to resort to violence and trickery to achieve their ends. Seymour Hoffman's Mickey comes across as a fundamentally unsympathetic personality, more interested in his gambling than his family.In the end Mickey leaves with Arthur for an unspecified, if idyllic location. They have no further use for God's Pocket. Yet even while they enjoy the benefits of their motor-caravan, Arthur is still taken off for a lesson in markspersonship by his wife. Violence, it seems, is endemic to this society, and everyone needs to protect themselves in whatever way they can.