Main Cast: Charles Durning, Robert Forster, J.J. Johnston, Denis Leary
Release Year: 2000
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Renowned character actor Joe Mantegna makes his directorial debut with this film adaptation of one of David Mamet's first plays, boasting such onscreen talent as Peter Falk, Charles Durning, and Robert Forster. Based on Mamet's experiences of working on Great Lake freighters while a grad student, the film centers on Dale (Tony Mamet, David's brother), an Ivy League college kid working on the Seaway Queen on an internship one summer. Though his romantic vision of life on the sea is soon dashed, he befriends a half-dozen members of the world-weary crew and learns about the unexpectedly rich -- and occasionally tragic -- lives they lead. This film premiered at the 2000 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review
This adaptation of an early David Mamet play is a diverting, if slight movie that benefits from the intermittent verve of the source material. Actor Joe Mantegna's directorial debut tells the story of Dale Katzman (played by Tony Mamet, David's younger brother), a Harvard graduate student who spends a summer working on a Great Lakes freighter. On board, he encounters a clutch of salty-tongued roughnecks who offer him life lessons, not to mention material for his nascent writing career. Less acid than Mamet's other works, the movie offers an intriguing glimpse at the early stirrings of a career-long preoccupation with machismo (Mamet wrote the play in the early '70s), as well as a poignant evocation of the class divide that no other Mamet work approximates. Though the listless scenario betrays the author's youth, Mamet's gift for stylized gutter dialogue appears to have been intact even back then. Among a crew of great character actors, Robert Forster stands out as a career boat worker who sees in Dale the life he missed. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
Paul Sarossy - Associate Producer, Margaret M. Mohr - Costume Designer, Mark Wallace - First Assistant Director, Joe Mantegna - Director, Christopher Cibelli - Editor, Eric R. Epperson - Executive Producer, Alan James - Executive Producer, Morris Ruskin - Executive Producer, Bob Mamet - Composer (Music Score), Thomas Carnegie - Production Designer, Paul Sarossy - Cinematographer, Tony Mamet - Producer, Joe Mantegna - Producer, John J. Thomson - Sound/Sound Designer, David Mamet - Screenwriter, David Mamet - Play Author
