Hailed as a great film, a lot is lost.
"Five East Pieces" is one of my favorite movies, I waited nearly 20 years to
see Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson's reunion in the next movie, "The King of Marvin Gardens." When I finally saw the film, thinking the scuttblebutt and reviews were potent to my standpoint, I was sorry to say that this was actually a disjointed and very disappointing effort. Bruce Dern and Jack Nicholson play brothers, one is a radio personality, and the other is a criminal. radio personality Nicholson sinks deeper into crooked Dern's underworld, etc.,etc.,etc. Formulaic storyline. I was waiting for something to happen. Superficial this is, Interesting it isn't. The best part of this movie was Jack Nicholson's monologue at the beginning. After that, the film devoids into senseless, pretentious, nosense.. 
An uncommon and out of place role for the legendary Jack yet still a good film of a brother conflict that ends tragic.
"The King of Marvin Gardens" certainly isn't a Nicholson gem because
his character he plays is so uncommon and laid back when Jack mostly took roles of the anti-hero, and rebel types, yet the film is interesting enough with conflict to be interesting. Nicholson is David Staebler a Philadelphia radio announcer who has a talk show in which he does monologue only to one day get a call from his slick and crooked brother Jason(Bruce Dern) who's been jailed. The film then shifts to the boardwalk of Atlantic City, NJ where the two brothers bond and plan new directions with hopes and dreams of money thru scams and mob business all to buy hotels, casinos and live on an island. The conflict of two different brothers David who's like light and Jason like dark really carries the film just enough to keep it interesting. Ellen Burstyn does add a little style and spice as the aging beauty caught between the two brothers. In the end the film takes a tragic turn and David returns to his talk radio in Philly. Really this film isn't a 70's classic in my opinion it moved a little slow and Nicholson's character though not boring seemed out of place, I'm use to seeing Jack having more complex and different roles. To sum it up it's still worth a watch the scenes of A.C. are great and the film gave pretty good sight into the 70's mob culture of gambling and casino business.. |
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