KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * *
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon
Director: Tom DiCillo
Running time: 107 minutes
Rating: M (offensive language)
Screening: Rialto
Verdict: Muddled, preachy film about a New York paparazzo finding his true self
A clunky script and unevenness of tone hamper this preachy film about a New York paparazzo whose cynical assumptions about life are upended when he befriends a homeless man.
Buscemi plays Les, a celeb-stalking snapper whose proudest accomplishment is a shot of Elvis Costello without his hat. Drifter Toby (Pitt) improbably inveigles himself into Les' world and even more improbably attracts the attention of a pop diva.
Buscemi's whiny tone and bug-eyed stare never seemed so forced, and some scenes of obviously improvised dialogue are almost cringingly inept.
The apprentice who teaches the cynical master a thing or two is an old idea but this film makes a pig's breakfast of it. Les is so unpleasant we can't understand why Toby wouldn't rather be under a bridge, and if Toby were any more gormless he would need life support.
Dimly one senses some sort of satire of our celebrity-obsessed age, but the film swings wildly from funny to edgy to preachy and back again. Underwritten and overplayed, it is one that not even Buscemi fans will treasure.
