I'm at a point in life where I really get into the older actors doing their thing. i came up watching Farina's movies. i grew up in Chicago, apparently he did too, or spent a lot of time there, and at one point I lived a block from him on Dearborn. And there all coincidence ends.
There are a lot of local references to the city he knows so well, and i do too, and so the city has a role in this film, as it did even more so in another Chicago movie, Thief, that Farina was also in, with James Caan. The Belden Deli where I had so many 2 AM sandwiches, , the Green Mill, all those famous street places were there too.
I digress. I have never seen Dennis in such command of a role where he really gets a chance to dig in and turn in this special performance. It's great. It takes years to develop the character to pull off something like this and he should be proud and delighted. He's better then ever. Even nicer that it comes at this point in a guy's life, even nicer.
Review of The Last Rites of Joe May
