The Florentine (1999)

How did this one get by me? I watched it today on cable. Terrible title. 1999? I was pretty busy that year developing Poe Forward and shooting POSTMODERN BLUES. I didn't venture out to many movies. I remember I succumbed to mass hysteria and went out in the rain to the Nuart that year to see BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, but the show was sold out and the lines for later times were around the block. I think I saw it a week later at a multiplex.

An ensemble piece, THE FLORENTINE is an actor's delight. The film feels like a comfortable pair of slippers. It's cozy and familiar, but without cliches. Yes, the major theme concerns the value of the extended family (as well as between blood relations) in society, but each of the 3 dimensional characters portrays a unique role in the fabric of this community (which happens to gather at a neighborhood, family-owned-for-generations bar room). Like a good play, every character has their moment in the limelight. Luke Perry shows he can act. Chris Penn delivers a performance to rival his own in THE FUNERAL. Best of all, Michael Madsen and his sister Virginia have a screen moment that seems to parallel their real life relationship.

Set and filmed in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the large cast of actors, including Jeremy Davies, Mary Stuart Masterson, Tom Sizemore, James Belushi, and Burt Young, come from all over the country. At some point, you exclaim to yourself, "Everybody's in this movie." For me, when Hal Holbrook showed up on a bar stool, I gave up on not being surprised.