Homicide (1991)

Directed by David Mamet. Starring Joe Mantegna, William H. Macy, Natalia Nogulich, Vincent Guastaferro, J. J. Johnston, Rebecca Pidgeon, J. S. Block, Lionel Mark Smith, Charles Stransky, Roberta Custer, Ving Rhames, Ricky Jay. [R]

Although the title suggests a conventional police procedural of detectives trying to solve a murder, the reality of writer/director Mamet’s intention is to examine a crisis of faith, consciousness, and identity, and the film is more interested in the morality of the protagonist’s beliefs and actions than anything related to law and order. Mantegna stars as a homicide detective named Bobby Gold, a Jew who disregards his past with some measure of shame, and by inadvertently appearing on the scene first, he gets assigned to probe the murder of an elderly Jewish woman operating a store in a run-down ghetto community. He resists, then goes through the motions, but eventually finds himself drawn in by the conspiracy theories of a Zionist organization that makes him question much about his life, his self, and what it means to be Jewish. For all of the film’s philosophical reflection and intriguing ideas, it’s not always credible, the storytelling can get muddled (the main plotline almost seems to peter out toward the end, getting replaced by the initial case that Mantegna had been working that involved the manhunt for a murderous drug-dealer), and the rhythm of the syncopated dialogue (the so-called “Mamet-speak”) is sometimes off, striving for elliptical tension but landing on inscrutability. Flawed but fascinating, and the sort of movie that leaves the viewer wanting more…mostly in a good way. Photographed by Roger Deakins.

69/100