Word: pantoliano
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...solemnity, EZ Streets somehow manages to avoid melodrama. Indeed, Haggis brings a mordant wit to his new show. He has conceived head gangster Jimmy Murtha (Joe Pantoliano) as the kind of guy who mercilessly blows people up, then goes to confession and can't quite deliver the goods. "I know what you do. God knows what you do," the priest chastises. "You're trying to tell me that the only sin you have to confess is that you took the Lord's name in vain?" Murtha's response: "I'm giving you what I can." Then he negotiates his penance...
That is in the ladies' clever and gutsy scheme to separate $2 million from Ceasar (Joe Pantoliano), who is keeping Violet. He's a hateful lout, so there are multiple pleasures to be found in watching him being maneuvered toward comeuppance by characters everyone can love as underdogs. The Wachowskis have the predilection for loopy camera setups common to first-time directors, but their hearts are in the right transgressive place, and their film will tide some of us over until Quentin gets...well...unbound...