JasparLamarCrabb A brilliantly acted film. Infantile John Cassavetes is a low level gangster who finds he has a contract on his head. He enlists the help of best friend Peter Falk. What transpires is a night of truth-telling and betrayals that does not end well for either of them. Elaine May wrote & directed this tough-as-nails expose and it's as far from THE HEARTBREAK KID as it could be. Falk & Cassavetes excel and the outstanding supporting cast includes Ned Beatty, Sanford Meisner (the legendary acting teacher making a very rare movie appearance), Joyce Van Patten as Cassavetes extremely angry wife and, in a shocking role, Carol Grace (aka Carol Matthau). The expert cinematography is by credited to Victor J. Kemper but appears to have been worked on by a number of people. May reportedly shot more than a million feet of film, leading to a battle with Paramount Pictures over how best to assemble & release this. May's 119 minute version is astounding.

pilgrip Elaine May and Cassavetes together. What a piece of work. It's rough, it's deep. These goes beyond experimenting with genre. This a human piece on two friends and their selfishness, their bond. When Cassavetes goes to his mother's grave, in the dark, and yells: Mum, where the f*** are you? (because he can not find her grave) - he laughs. Falk is apologizing to the dead, but can not give a straight answer to his friend. So what's sacred? And John, off course - he laughs. Nuff said. Cassavetes knew more about life than all the dead combine together. Brilliant. It's just like one of films made by Cassavetes himself. I even heard that much of the creative input (credited by May) is by the master himself.

allix-1 Very outdated film with awful, cliché-ridden and mawkish dialog and a very poor construction. In addition, Cassavetes and Falk overact constantly. A pseudo "good movie". It takes no time to discover how catastrophic this intellectual turkey is. The first scene is a total bore, filled with histrionics and hysteric exchanges. The sound is horrible. Camera movements are without imagination as is the building of characters. No poetry, no subtle psychology, no interesting shots. The actors smoke constantly and we see ads for beer beverages. Very cheap, indeed. (one exception : Ned Beattie"s nice and simple way of playing the hit man).

dbdumonteil Although the director is Elaine May,the style is Cassavetes's.One may think it's a lost work of him.Peter Falk's presence accentuates this impression.The female parts were too small for Gena Rowlands,I guess..An offbeat work,it starts as a thriller with gangsters and maffia,but we soon discover we got it all wrong.It's a psychological drama,a meditation on friendship (how could have we thought sweet Falk ,full of bonhomie ,was a Judas?),on death (the long sequence in the graveyard ) and mainly on this lost paradise,childhood:Falk tells Cassavetes that he often speaks of his child memories with his wife;actually,he'll do that afterwards,at the end of the movie.Childhood again,when the broken watch reminds them of a long gone past that comes back to take its toll. Childhood again,when Cassavetes buys candies.Childhood's memories might explain Falk's ambiguous behavior.Remember James Cagney and his mother in "white heat" .There's a Walsh dash thrown in here.