Word: fabian
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DeNiro plays Harry Fabian, an ambulance chaser (a.k.a. personal injury lawyer) who wants to be somebody. He decides to bring back the good old days of boxing with the help of Al Grossman (Jack Warden), a retired prizefighter prone to coronary failure...
...Boom Boom" Grossman (Al's brother), well-played by Alan King as the intimidating gangster-type, threatens Fabian. If Al dies during Fabian's boxing fiasco, so does Fabian (foreshadowing?). And Boom Boom already has good reason to follow through: He hates Fabian because of confrontations in their favorite pub, plus Fabian's dream poses a potential threat to his own boxing promotion corporation...
...plot thickens with a few more characters: Add one brooding bartender (Cliff Gorman) who hates Fabian but agrees to loan him $12,000 the day before the big event (hint, hint?), the bartender's wife (Jessica Lange) who loves Fabian and a bookie who likes Fabian but will kill him if he reneges on his loan (a harbinger...
...cast does manage to present some adequate caricatures of their cardboard roles. DeNiro, as always, brings as much depth as possible to the doomed but hopeful Fabian. Lange, however, who acts best when expressing silent frustration with a cigarette, cannot even maintain an elementary New York City accent...
...WHEEDLES AND HE WHINES. HE schemes and he scams. He is full of false confidence and authentic desperation. He is Harry Fabian, a small-time New York City lawyer possessed by what he thinks are big-time dreams -- though the rest of us may not quite see them that way. He is played at full throttle by Robert De Niro in Night and the City, a movie that is, in its essence, a series of verbal arias for the star, occasions to demonstrate bravura technique...