Small Time (1996/I)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Jeffrey Reiner

Writers (WGA):

Jeffrey Reiner (story)
Patrick Cupo (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

4 February 1999 (Germany)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime

Tagline:

They really tried to be professionals... it just didn't work out.

Plot:

Ben is a small-time gangster who gets the opportunity to earn a lot of money. His boss sends him to...

Plot Keywords:

Gangster | Female Nudity | Sex Drug | Male Nudity | Black Comedy

Cast

Glenn Plummer	...	Ben
Patrick Cupo	...	Jesus
Ernie Reyes Jr.	...	Marty (as Ernie Reyes)
Darren McGavin	...	Sam
Tracey Ross	...	Verneile
Helana May Lim	...	Trini
Maribel	...	Carmen
Saginaw Grant	...	The Holy Man
James Russo	...	Jerry
Rae Dawn Chong	...	The Woman
Steven Reich	...	Jerry's Friend
Pee Wee Piemonte	...	The Dutchman's Bodyguard
Jeff Fahey	...	The Dutchman

Also Known As:

Waiting for the Man

MPAA:

Rated R for some strong sexuality, language, violence and drug content.

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:MA (TV rating) | Iceland:16 | USA:R | Spain:18

Filming Locations:

San Diego, California, USA

Company:

Peninsula Films Inc.

I loved this movie without reservation and would love to revisit it. So sad that it doesn't seem to have come out on DVD. Why not???

Glenn Plumber gives a perfect performance as an earnest, highly motivated petty criminal, with the best intentions, all of which go awry. There is a plan, an exchange of bowling bags filled with cocaine and money. The setting for this ominous rendezvous is an abandoned cabin in a vast and forbidding desert. One of the most hopeless settings ever seen in film. And our hero's chosen criminal associates don't have an ounce of focus, or even a sense of cause-and-effect, and, sadly, he too has this problem. I guess that makes this a Black Comedy. But it's a black comedy with tremendous elegance. There's nothing ugly in the telling of it. Paced with a droll formality, in tidy little chapters, with titles: "The Wrong Man"... "The Right Man"... each chapter presents us with a rising tsunami of wrong moves, misperceptions, horrible mistakes. Doom. The flummoxed hero seeks wisdom in a picture book, found on the floor, hallucinates an ancient Apache wise man who silently offers him interesting but unhelpful tips on desert survival. What a crazy little digression! Strangely real, strangely moving, strangely full of, well, grace. We sense that the hero's pole-axed dumbness is itself a kind of grace. Like a nearly-blind Mister Magoo, he just might get through this booby-trapped maze, and we want this for him. The movie is making us want this. It'a a perfect seduction. We stay with him through a whole series of encounters with mythically perfect antagonists, including the sublime Rae Dawn Chong, a crescendo rising to absolute mayhem, and stagger on out with a raggedly absurd happy ending. Crazy. Wonderful. Nicely done. I think this should be a famous movie.