So many talented people are involved in this production, a low-budget misfire, that one might wish to hesitate before describing its faults, but such yet must be done. Completed in 1995 in the incorporated village of Farmingdale in Nassau County, utilizing video tape and many local players, the work has the sequestered tone of a staged play. Killer's, the name of a Far Rockaway tavern owned by Mary Killoran with her brother Jimmy, the pair also maintaining lodging in upstairs apartments. When alcoholic Jimmy becomes arrears for ten grand in gambling debt to crime kingpin Robert Fitzgerald, "Bobby-Fitz", whose operation includes prostitution and loan sharking, in addition to illegal gambling, Bobby assumes Jimmy's half of the bar. However, Mary will not sell her portion to Bobby, thereby damaging his plan for using the establishment to launder mob moneys. At this time, an undercover narcotics officer is murdered, with evidence implicating Bobby-Fitz as the shooter, and when the slain lawman's partner, played by Hugh O'Gorman, tries to exact revenge while becoming a bartender at the tavern, a violent showdown looms. All of the cast work hard, with only O'Gorman hamming a bit, and there are valuable contributions from Roshelle Berliner for nicely detailed production design, Tristan Gros for effective camera-work, and Thomas Rondinella for defined editing; however, sound ambiance and synching leave something to be desired, being marked by uneven quality. An obtrusive score only detracts and distracts, with continuity difficulties widespread, e.g., during a film wherein virtually every character is shot, beaten, stabbed, or bludgeoned, the amounts and placement of blood come and go in erratic fashion, as does the physical condition of those wounded. As is so often the case, the storyline is hamstrung by a script that is overwhelmingly lacking in logic, product of producer/director/scriptor Robert Hanlon. A DVD version provides naught in the way of extras for this film that is not lengthy; it merely seems so.
