Once in a while. Just once in a while a film come along that makes you sit up and pay attention. We've all seen so many films depicting mobs, and cops of course, but this film is almost like a documentary. We're shown real mobsters rather than amalgams of all the previous mobsters we've seen. These guys are believable, each and every one. They are real. And the cops. Real. The captain is an honest cop, but he knows that in a big city sometimes you just have to let things follow their course, and that's often what he does. Some mobsters are just too big and too powerful for a mere police captain to take them on all by himself, and besides, most of the time they do their own internal policing. Saves the city a lot of time and paperwork. Stephanie Finochio is perfect in her role as a detective with lots of baggage and lots of problems. I really loved her brother. Unfortunately I'm not sure of his name, but for all that he was a sleaze, he was a likable sleaze. And her mother as well. In this tale of a detective stepping slightly around the law to avenge the death of her brother, the beating of her mother in the face of taunting threats from the mob, this detective quickly pulls herself together and learns how to kick ass, and she does it in a realistic way, not through CGI flying through the air like a model plane. Nobody was "acting". These people were real as were the settings. I understand this film was made on a real shoestring by Hollywood standards, which speaks very well for it. This never for a moment felt like a low-budget film, and when I think of the ninety- plus million dollar dogs Hollywood turns out, I'm appalled. If I had one complaint it would be that the cover features William Forsythe, Armand Assante and Eric Roberts when in fact all three had only minor roles. Mr. Forsythe's role was important, but he didn't actually appear that much in the film. Mr. Assante appeared only for a few brief minutes as did Eric Roberts. This is a distressing trend in Hollywood, tossing in a "name" or two and then featuring it on the cover. Just watched Swelter "starring" J-C Van Damme who literally did nothing but sit around here and there. He could have sent in his performance on a cell phone. Jesse is a film I'll probably watch again one of these days. Nice work!
