Hoje e Sempre

Produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Jeremy Davies, Virginia Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Mary Stuart Masterson, Hal Holbrook, Luke Perry, James Belushi, Burt Young, without a strong name writing or directing it, "The Florentine" was one of those good reunions of great people from Hollywood that resulted in one of the saddest films ever made, and sad in a bad way. Here's a film that wasted a little the potential of talented actors that didn't get a clue of what they were doing when they entered into this small work.

With not much of a purpose on sight, "The Florentine", of the title is a bar owned by Michael Madsen's character, a place where most of the characters will spend some good time in between their personal dramas before the great event in town, the wedding of Madsen's sister. Other event on course is the return of her first love, who abandoned her on the wedding day. Until we get to the party, there's the characters dilemmas about love, money, deceits, respect, meaning of life and etc, slow speeches that don't evolve to anything interesting and worth seeing. There's good moments like the ones involving Jeremy Davies trying to impress a beautiful waitress that doesn't want anything with him or Sizemore dealing with two crooks that robbed the naive Perry, who joined on a business enterprise that was a complete scam. The dialogs are uninteresting, most of the characters are real losers that don't have a thing to say except arguing about not having any money, but in the end everybody gets happy because they have the opportunity of being known as the common people, and common people all get together at The Florentine.

No wonder why a project with such a good cast is so below the radar and is very likely that Mr. Coppola didn't get his invested money back with this thing, and to think that he directed 11 films (between 1983 and 1997) just to pay the high costs of "One From the Heart", a box-office failure but an excellent picture better than "The Florentine". I wonder how many he had to produce just to pay for this one. 5/10

I have seen the rough cut of this picture and it is worth checking out. There is some fine writing by Damien Gray and Tom Benson ably handled by a good cast. Problem one, they all look too fat and too old for the parts. Problem two, the direction is merely competent. Problem three, no ending. it just kind of fizzles out. Hopefully this was fixed in the final edit. Look for good things in the future from the writers.

From a play, THE FLORENTINE is a look at several friends whiling away their lives in an old Pennsylvania steel town. They are slowly preparing for the marriage of the sister (Virginia Madsen) of the local barkeep (Michael Madsen). Among the cast, who spend most of their time in the local bar, called The Florentine, are Hal Holbrook as a retiree, Luke Perry as a naif, Chris Penn as the local tough and Tom Sizemore as a newly minted parolee. Jim Belushi has a spot as a con man and Burt Young also has a small role as a loanshark. Madsen's character is the tie that binds this motley crew. Other females in the cast include Jill Hennessey and Mary Stuart Masterson, both of whom are terrific, although this is really a guys' movie. A great cast, a great play and a wonderful movie that expands the play just enough to keep us riveted.

I found the movie itself to be extremely boring. I've seen the movie two times and I really can't tell you what it's about. In summary, it's about a bunch of guys just hanging out.

What kept me captivated was the use of my town for the filming of the movie. When the production crew was in town filming, it definitely was a big to-do. I was somewhat disappointed that the movie never made it to the theatre's in this country.

Most of the movie was filmed in Easton, PA. The interior of the bar is Mother's Tavern in Centre Square, Easton. The exterior of the bar is the Mount Vernon Ale House, at 6th and Northampton St., Easton, PA. The neighborhood scenes were filmed in South Side Bethlehem, PA and the industrial scenes were filmed at the Bethlehem Steel facility.

This character study/slice of life story is very well done. The cast is stellar and each of them portray their characters as real, the kinds of people we have all met at some time as we wander through life.

It is the first time I have seen the two Madsens together in a film hope to see them team up again. Sizemore, Halbrook, Penn et.al. all team up to serve a slice of life to the audience that shows real life to us, with it humor, tragedy, comedy, pathos, hopelessness and hopefulness.

This is well worth the cost of the rental.