Palookaville

Starring:William Forsythe, Vincent Gallo, Adam Trese, Gareth Williams, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Bridgit Ryan, Kim Dickens, Suzanne Shepherd, Nicole Burdette, Robert LuPone, Sam Coppola (II), Frances McDormand, Walter Bryant, Douglas Seale, William Riker, Nesbitt Blaisdell, Leonard Jackson, William Duell, Peter McRobbie, Stan Tracy
Director: Alan Taylor
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Palookaville
Overlooked and very good slacker crime movie
Even Mr Gallo can't save this movie
LOVABLE LOSERS
Top notch crime comedy

Palookaville
Starring: William Forsythe , Vincent Gallo , Adam Trese , Gareth Williams , and Lisa Gay Hamilton
Director: Alan Taylor
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

Buffalo '66
Truth or Consequences, N.M.
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ASIN: B000089730
Release Date: 2003-04-01

Description

Arresting humor meets criminal comedy in this quirky romp about three wonderfully witless cons in search of a crime. Starring William Forsythe, Vincent Gallo, Adam Trese and Frances McDormand, Palookaville is an irresistible, feel-good gem (Screen International) that's 'terrificallyenjoyable (The Wall Street Journal) and hard to resist (Variety)! For bumbling buddies Sid (Forsythe), Russ (Gallo) and Jerry (Trese), a life of crime looks like a solid career move until they learn they might be under-qualified. Plotting to rob a jewelry store, they mistakenly burglarize a bakery. Scheming to hold up an armored truck, they wind up rescuing the driver. In fact, their hilarious struggle to pull off just one simple heist proves that crime doesn't payif you're too dumb to take the loot!

Customer Reviews:

Palookaville.......2006-05-17

I'm a huge Vincent Gallo fan, I like his music and his movies but the only roles I've seen him in are the roles he wrote for himself in "Buffalo 66" and
"The Brown Bunny". Gallo is an immense talent, the man does everything and is extremely underappreciated. Not only is this movie good, but it's cool to see Gallo acting and reciting dialouge that is not his own. In both his own films, he plays a tortured character who's incapable of connecting with other people. Here, he's in a comedic role so it's a nice change of pace (note: this movie was made 2 years before "Buffalo 66" and almost 8 years before "The Brown Bunny"). By now, Gallo is known (if known at all) as the guy who got oral sex performed on him for TBB, but this movie really displays his comedic and acting talents. But enough about Gallo because this isn't really his film. The movie is about three unemployed guys named Russ (Gallo),
Sid (William Forsythe, "The Devil's Rejects"), and Jerry (Adam Trese). Since they all seem incapable of getting jobs they decide to rob a jewelry store, but accidentally end up in the bakery next door. Russ robs the register,
Jerry eats the baked goods...The cops show up, Russ gets away and Jerry hides in the bakery and still eats while the cops look around. Coincidentally, Russ's brother-in-law is a cop, who doesn't realize at first that there's powder from donuts all over Russ's coat. After the bakery debacle, the guys decide that maybe the criminal life isn't for them; but Jerry has a wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton, "Nine Lives") and a child to feed so they need jobs. After a few unsuccesful jabs at a real job, they decide to rob armored trucks using toy guns. All the actors are funny and Oscar Winner Frances McDormand (Best Actress, "Fargo") has an extended cameo. The movie has some funny dialouge and the situations that the characters get into are pretty stupid and unrealistic, but still funny. But the movie does have its flaws, I don't think the film should've began with the robbing of the bakery and why does it never occur to the guys to fill out a job application? But all the actors are great and each character's personality is so different. As I said, I've only seen Gallo in two other movies and I've only seen Forsythe in "The Devil's Rejects" and the transformations are amazing. As I said, it has it's flaws which keeps it from being a 5 star movie but it is an entertaining and funny movie.

GRADE: B+

Overlooked and very good slacker crime movie.......2005-12-26

Despite the slow pacing, this cast of slacker wannabe criminals delivers a comic romp of an attempt at an armored car robbery. Gallo's character truly makes the movie, with his expostulations at his crime team. He pontificates on proper criminal behavior and how to get ahead in life (while failing miserably on his own). Gallo plays a lighter, if still strange, character than he does in Buffalo '66, which is also highly recommended.

Even Mr Gallo can't save this movie.......2005-03-11

I'm a Gallo's fan. I expected a lot of this movie, the actors and de ratings was very good. But...believe me, don't waist money and time. The director didn't know what to do, the actors didn't know how to act. Incredible. Horrible. Boring.

LOVABLE LOSERS.......2004-09-02

A knobby but charming take on criminal wannabes, not the blood-ridden "Reservoir Dogs" variety but the kind who smear black Cherry polish on plastic Mattel guns from the corner store in hopes to pull off a bank robbery.

Which ends up as an occasionally drifty but generally charming caper, strewn with quirky half laughs and bittersweet observations about realities of modern life. Some isolated scenes fail to work, but overall Palookaville zooms along to a surprisingly chipper ending.

The DVD has some interesting interviews, esp when the director speaks of his inspirations (Italo Calvino of all people!) and the point behind the title (which harks back to Marlon Brando of yore).

A rewarding rental.

Top notch crime comedy.......2003-05-30

Although there's a tip of the hat in the end credits to Italian writer Italo Calvino, the entire first sequence of this great crime comedy was inspired by Mario Monicelli's 1958 film, Big Deal on Madonna Street (also the basis for another recent crime comedy, Welcome to Collinville, as well as the first part of Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks).

This is without question one of Vincent Gallo's best films; the director, Alan Taylor, along with writer David Epstein, manages to bring out the actor's smug half-know-it-all dopey cynicism that can't help but provoke chuckles, if not outright guffawing. William Forsythe is also really well cast as the great planner of the burglary trio--a loner whose girlfriend left him ten years earlier and who now finds solace in two dogs he lives with but never bathes. Adam Trese, the married one of the group, has a baby to feed as well as a loving wife whose boss is a bit too friendly. Frances McDormand is here in a relatively small part and does a good job, but it's really the threesome who make and move the film.

After a botched opening heist (a great sequence; the take-off on the Big Deal material here is perfect), the trio set about to rob an armored truck. Unfortunately, Gallo's brother-in-law is a big half-dumb cop who knows Gallo is up to no good so tails him whenever he can. None of the three guys is anything approaching well off--all of them need money pretty badly, in fact.

The poignancy this need evokes blended with the ingredients of desperation and not-really-thought-through planning is so gracefully done, so finely executed, it would be hard to find a better recent crime comedy. Welcome to Collinville is a worthy runner-up, but Palookaville takes the cake (check out the opening scene to see this idiom actually occur--literally!)