Oldboy by Josh G. Eckert

Si on me demande mon âge, je ne réponds pas j’ai 50 ans mais j’ai vingt films, car ce sont mes films qui rythment ma vie.

Gloria - Broad Under the Influence

Watched this old John Cassavettes film from our Netflix streaming menu last night. I’ve long wanted to see this, as I’ve slowly come around to being a Gena Rowlands fan over the course of the past 20 years or so through such movies as Woody Allen’s “Another Woman” or Jim Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth”, and of course “Woman Under the Influence”.

In this one she plays an older washed-up Gangster’s Moll who has a situation thrust upon her in the guise of a small seven year old boy whose family has been murdered by her former associates just down the hall from her apartment. At first she is cranky and complaining and wants nothing to do with him (I love an early line of hers “You know I don’t like kids, especially yours”), but when pushed up against the wall and the mothering instinct kicks in, she becomes a hellcat and the rest of the movie is the joy of watching her performance as she takes on one group of mobsters after another. The kid isn’t bad either. What is refreshing about this one is that it isn’t quite a standard ‘Crime and Mobsters’ movie, and it isn’t quite the 'Indy Talkfest’ that Cassavettes usually does, but a clever hybrid of the two.

I wonder if this was any influence on Luc Besson’s “The Professional”? It would make a good double feature.

4 stars out of 5

Why’d you lock me up, you…dick-shit?