Lakeboat

One would think that having worked with David Mamet for so many years, Joe Mantegna would have a superb understanding of Mamet-speak. Mamet's dialog requires a certain rhythm, or cadence to make it work, and despite the high caliber actors involved in this project, I didn't feel that many of them pulled it off very well. Denis Leary and Robert Forster seemed to get it, but everyone else around them seemed very stilted, and the dialog seemed truly forced. Mamet is fascinated by the dance of dialog, and if the cast won't dance, it doesn't work.

I think you probably have to be a huge David Mamet fan to really love this film. I'm not a huge fan, although I also don't hate his works. As for this film, I liked it but didn't love it. The entire film was a character study, and I thought was well done -- mostly. With this cast, I don't think it could go wrong. Robert Forster was fantastic. Some of the humor fell flat for me. Still, I thought it was worth seeing. My grandfather used to work in large ships on the Great Lakes. That's mostly why I rented this film. Although I suspect that his own experiences were not much like this film, it was interesting to me to think that some of them may have been a little bit similar.

Some familiar faces in this play turned film, by David Mamet. a student on a summer job makes friends with various workers on a freighter ship. Charles Durning, Peter Falk, Denis Leary, Andy Garcia, George Wendt (NORM!). they had all been around for Years. SOOOO much talking. much of it is just dull chatter. goes on and on. and one of the actors is just annoying. Mamet needed to jazz up the script with jokes, or ... something. probably the best part of this was seeing the locks the ship went through. interesting stuff. certainly more interesting than the chatter on board. kind of an updated version of Two Years before the Mast, novel from 1840. it's a family affair.. David Mamet managed to get Tony Mamet and Bob Mamet on the payroll as well! one of the three projects directed by Joe Mantegna. this is his ONE film, and two television shows. it's just okay. not a lot going on. needed spicing up.

I came upon this movie while channel surfing. I missed the opening but I was drawn in immediately. I loved the dialogue. A scene happens, there is no "action" but the characters are changed by each other. And the characters are so strange and hectic. But you fall into them and their foibles. I also loved the 'jewishness' of Dale. Mamet's dialogue is my best. I always have a sense that he is writing and then I have to come and check. It's heightened dialogue. Almost super-real. Peter Faulk and Denis Leary are also an absolute treat in this movie. I knew that Joe Mantegna was a favorite actor of Mamet's but I didn't know that he directed as well. Very well I thought. I don't remember ever hearing about this movie before so I'm glad I caught it.

Haven't seen the movie, but saw the play at the Goodman in Chicago years ago. Mamet was uncannily on target; I felt he knew my old crew mates inside and out. Other comments seem to evaluate the movie as entertainment or what they expect of Mamet, or some other side issue. How about evaluating it as TRUTH?! The lakeboats are all gone now. The Mesabi iron ore range in Minnesota is played out and South American steel has virtually killed the US steel industry. The ore boats no longer ply the lakes, and the last one, the Mather, is now a floating museum docked at Cleveland.

So the play catches a piece of American history recorded nowhere else. All that foul language; yep, it's right on! Don't like it? Then you don't like telling it like it is! (Pardon -- like it WAS!). Perhaps the movie has it's faults; I hear they forgot the delay between an engine room signal and the reply/confirmation. But reviewers who focus on the entertainment quality of the movie miss the point: it should be viewed as LIVING HISTORY!! (Alas, of an era now totally dead and gone).

In the Summer of 1950, fresh out of high school, I shipped out as a deckhand on the Samuel F. B. Morse one of the last wooden hatch boats, but got fired the next week because I was to weak to handle the huge wooden hatches. Later I shipped out September 6, 1950, on the Presque Isle, on a run from Cleveland to Escanaba, and stayed for the Fall months. The next Summer is was deckwatch on the James A Farrell.

It's all gone now, and David Mamet's play is the only record I've ever seen of what crew life was really like. Found the movie/play boring? crude? tedious? Right; now you know what life on the lakeboats was really like!!!