Scott Rosenberg has written a film that craves multiple viewings and deep contemplation. Mr. Baldwin's comment about "everyone concerned [being] typecast & going through the motions" is actually one of the keys to understanding the film.
At first, it seems that gangster films have become so tired that they've even run out of settings. Denver? C'mon. I don't buy these east-coast thugs living in Denver. But think about it. You don't have to think about them LIVING in Denver at all. Why. Because they are all DEAD IN DENVER, doing THINGS. Why? Because they are in Purgatory.
At its heart, this film has everything to do with the Catholicism to which the original "Familigia" appealed.
Jimmy the Saint is DEAD. Look at the way Garcia holds his hands throughout the film -- folded on his lower chest, like a corpse. The opening sequence reveals his business -- bringing the dead back to the living to conduct unfinished business through the avenue of video.
All of the gangsters are dead -- Lloyd's character's hands are even rotting away.
This film is about the transition from this life to the next. The gansters are stuck in a place that any self-respecting east-coast mobster would (with my apologies to the fine city of Denver) call "the sticks."
THAT is why when they interfere with the "citizens" they create havoc.
THAT is why their meeting place is a maltshop and not a bar.
THAT is why the devil (Christopher Walkin) is in a flaming inferno (okay, it's a sauna) downstairs by the time Jimmy last visits him.
THAT is why when they finally, somehow do redeem themselves (again, a thoroughly Catholic dogma) they finally make it to their version of heaven -- BOATDRINKS!!!!!!!!!!!
The film plays on the tired gangster-talk that Mr. Baldwin picked up on in this column of reviews. It has been called "over written" by Roger Ebert, and I see his point, to an extent. I never would have given the film a thumbs-down (as did he), because its ambition is too high. There are some deep philosophical themes underlying this film that are too slippery and thoughtprovoking to dismiss a film as being over-thought.
Still, it's not great film in any conventional way. Like its title, its "clunky." But sometimes, "clunky" is better than anything done by rote. It inspires thought and introspection. And like so many works of fiction, the key to understanding this film may just be a deeper consideration of the title.
