God's Pocket is worth a watch if for nothing else to see the talented Phillip Seymour Hoffman in one of his final leading roles. The film however is pretty depressing and tries too hard to be another Last Exit To Brooklyn without daring to go the extra mile regarding shock value. It's an interesting take on a story told a hundred times before, as this time the mafia thugs who are trying to extort and bully the community get chewed up and spit out by the community. We're made to believe that's because this community is so rough and tough and hardboiled and bad, but the characters don't really come across like that. The motivations of the characters are really hard to follow. One minute the main character is asking for the $700 that is owed him, the next minute (after losing everything he has on a bad horse race bet) he's acting like he doesn't want the $700 and only reluctantly taking it. And then there's the excruciatingly depressing subplot of the elderly journalist who strikes up an affair with the main character's wife, played completely vapidly by Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. The entire thing makes no sense, why she would so easily be seduced by him, how the community all knew about the affair literally moments after it happened, why she just stood there as the journalist was getting beat up at the end, showing no emotion at all. I just didn't understand what any of that had to do with anything other than they needed some narrative to create a movie that was longer than 80 minutes. Anyway, this is worth a watch. It's not completely horrible. But it's no Mean Streets either.
Review of God's Pocket
