I haven't seen this movie, and judging from this review I don't think I will (even though I like Richard Gere, and I love Tony LoBianco) - but listen to Kael's writing. It's so funny, so marvelous.
Bloodbrothers 1978
Bloodbrothers 1978
The director, Robert Mulligan, is trying to something crude, powerful, volatile -- but it goes terribly wrong. The story is of a brawling Italian Catholic family living in Co-op City, in the Bronx, and the actors -- Richard Gere as the sensitive imaginative 19 year old, and Tony LoBianco as his father, and Paul Sorvino as his uncle -- pour on the Mediterranean sensuality and act at their highest pitch. The father and uncle, who are electricians on construction jobs, are frustrated, boozing, skirt-chasing, braggart hardhats; the boy is trying to save himself. This is an ethnic variant of all those the-summer-the-adolescent-became-a-man pictures, done in a messagey, exploitation manner. People laugh with hysterical heartiness, or they've learned their lessons and say things like "Life can hurt. It's made me feel close to all those doin' the hurtin' dance." Gere's performance is all mannerisms -- defenseless, sunshiny grins and juvenile torment; LoBianco is reaching so frenziedly for large-scale emotions that he seems three feet off the ground; and Sorvino appears to equate hardhat with wide-eyed simpleton. The only actor who gets inside his role is Kenneth McMillan in the minor part of Banion, the crippled barkeeper.
"laugh with hysterical heartiness"
"appears to equate hardhat with wide-eyed simpleton"
hahahaha
Posted by sheila