Post-war Los Angeles is nicely evoked in this story of two brothers -- Desmond Spellacy (Robert DeNiro) and Tom (Robert Duvall). Plenty of grand old gas-guzzling Fords. Vacant lots that are now undoubtedly buried under a Starbucks or a Nieman-Marcus. Five-dollar cat houses that smell like old paint.
And both DeNiro and Duvall do well by their several parts. DeNiro is thoughtful, reserved, and an efficient wheeler and dealer in the hierarchy of the Catholic church, a Monseignor in fact. Duvall is equally smart but more tempestuous. He's not much of a pragmatist, ripping off a Fat Cat's "Catholic Layman of the Year" breast ribbon, flinging it drunkenly away, and asking at a public gathering if the Fat Cat, Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), was wearing it when he was "banging Lois Fazenda." Who is -- or was -- Lois Fazenda, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. She was a great big pain in the neck, a beautiful young woman who was careless enough to get herself murdered and then cut in half, with both parts distributed in a vacant lot. Duvall and the other detectives and reporters chuckle and make jokes as they check out the body parts.
In the course of his investigation Duvall turns up the fact that Lois Fazenda was a disappointed movie starlet who made some skin flicks and was subsequently butchered by the producer, who then committed suicide. She turned to hookery and was the close personal friend and sex toy of Jack Amsterdam, the Fat Cat whose financial favors DeNiro has been cultivating. DeNiro himself once met Lois Fazenda by accident, although he doesn't remember it until he's reminded of it. All this, of course, involves the church in the murder, upping the stakes all around. It puts Duvall in the position of having to investigate his own brother, his brother's Cash Cow, and the entire institution of the church.
There's still another way in which Lois Fazenda is a nuisance. Her case, although it involves a minimum of screen time and practically no suspense, is a heck of a lot more interesting than the story of intrigue between Fat Cat criminals and church finances. Lois Fazenda, modeled on the "Black Dahlia" murder, was the victim of a particularly barbaric crime -- yet her death is almost brushed off, the mystery given little attention, and the murderer's identity sloughed off with some two-bit comment about how he's dead now.
Instead of a notorious and still-unsolved case of illegal dumping, we're left with a wary relationship between two brothers who have taken different paths in life, and an exploration of how the Catholic church takes losing real estate deals off your hands so you get a tax write-off. The dicey relationship between Desmond and Tom is nicely drawn. (In "Mean Streets", DeNiro played the other, irresponsible friend.) But do we really need to see Charles Durning dancing an Irish jig? Far more gripping to see Duvall alone poking through the abandoned barracks where Lois Fazenda was sawed in half, and finding a bathtub covered with dried blood.
DeNiro looks the part of the manipulative priest. Duvall, though, has settled into his later mode of open-mouthed grins, nodding head, and meaningless chuckles (he he). There's an outstanding performance by Cyril Cusack as the rather worldly Cardinal who is philosophical about where the church's money is coming from. The score is elegiac and its theme nicely blends hints of the Spanish guitar and a sentimental Irish tune played on a wooden tenor recorder.
John Gregory Dunne, who died not long ago, was a fine and cynical writer. The problem is that in this screenplay he seems to need to fill us in on the secrets behind the rectory's closed doors. A powerful priest plays footsies with a louche real-estate mogul. What else is new? Dunne seems to have taken the same position that many Italian-American writers have taken with regard to the Mafia, trying to explain how things work because so many of us have it wrong. See, the Dons have wives and dogs and family values just like the rest of us. Or the way some Southern writers on the margin of history, Faulkner for instance, tried to clarify the issue of race relations for the rest of us. You Northerners think we hate all blacks but we don't. When they're nice, we're nice too. One of them taught me how to play the banjo as a child.
The narrative drifts off in two separate directions and holds them together by the thinnest of threads, while devoting most of its attention to the less captivating of the two stories. "The Brothers Spellacy" might have made a solid movie all on its own, drenched in ethnicity, and the final scene at the graveyard is quite moving, but this film is sawed in half.
And both DeNiro and Duvall do well by their several parts. DeNiro is thoughtful, reserved, and an efficient wheeler and dealer in the hierarchy of the Catholic church, a Monseignor in fact. Duvall is equally smart but more tempestuous. He's not much of a pragmatist, ripping off a Fat Cat's "Catholic Layman of the Year" breast ribbon, flinging it drunkenly away, and asking at a public gathering if the Fat Cat, Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), was wearing it when he was "banging Lois Fazenda." Who is -- or was -- Lois Fazenda, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. She was a great big pain in the neck, a beautiful young woman who was careless enough to get herself murdered and then cut in half, with both parts distributed in a vacant lot. Duvall and the other detectives and reporters chuckle and make jokes as they check out the body parts.
In the course of his investigation Duvall turns up the fact that Lois Fazenda was a disappointed movie starlet who made some skin flicks and was subsequently butchered by the producer, who then committed suicide. She turned to hookery and was the close personal friend and sex toy of Jack Amsterdam, the Fat Cat whose financial favors DeNiro has been cultivating. DeNiro himself once met Lois Fazenda by accident, although he doesn't remember it until he's reminded of it. All this, of course, involves the church in the murder, upping the stakes all around. It puts Duvall in the position of having to investigate his own brother, his brother's Cash Cow, and the entire institution of the church.
There's still another way in which Lois Fazenda is a nuisance. Her case, although it involves a minimum of screen time and practically no suspense, is a heck of a lot more interesting than the story of intrigue between Fat Cat criminals and church finances. Lois Fazenda, modeled on the "Black Dahlia" murder, was the victim of a particularly barbaric crime -- yet her death is almost brushed off, the mystery given little attention, and the murderer's identity sloughed off with some two-bit comment about how he's dead now.
Instead of a notorious and still-unsolved case of illegal dumping, we're left with a wary relationship between two brothers who have taken different paths in life, and an exploration of how the Catholic church takes losing real estate deals off your hands so you get a tax write-off. The dicey relationship between Desmond and Tom is nicely drawn. (In "Mean Streets", DeNiro played the other, irresponsible friend.) But do we really need to see Charles Durning dancing an Irish jig? Far more gripping to see Duvall alone poking through the abandoned barracks where Lois Fazenda was sawed in half, and finding a bathtub covered with dried blood.
DeNiro looks the part of the manipulative priest. Duvall, though, has settled into his later mode of open-mouthed grins, nodding head, and meaningless chuckles (he he). There's an outstanding performance by Cyril Cusack as the rather worldly Cardinal who is philosophical about where the church's money is coming from. The score is elegiac and its theme nicely blends hints of the Spanish guitar and a sentimental Irish tune played on a wooden tenor recorder.
John Gregory Dunne, who died not long ago, was a fine and cynical writer. The problem is that in this screenplay he seems to need to fill us in on the secrets behind the rectory's closed doors. A powerful priest plays footsies with a louche real-estate mogul. What else is new? Dunne seems to have taken the same position that many Italian-American writers have taken with regard to the Mafia, trying to explain how things work because so many of us have it wrong. See, the Dons have wives and dogs and family values just like the rest of us. Or the way some Southern writers on the margin of history, Faulkner for instance, tried to clarify the issue of race relations for the rest of us. You Northerners think we hate all blacks but we don't. When they're nice, we're nice too. One of them taught me how to play the banjo as a child.
The narrative drifts off in two separate directions and holds them together by the thinnest of threads, while devoting most of its attention to the less captivating of the two stories. "The Brothers Spellacy" might have made a solid movie all on its own, drenched in ethnicity, and the final scene at the graveyard is quite moving, but this film is sawed in half.