Five Corners

Some interesting performances from people who went on to bigger and better things. Turturro in particular gives a controlled turn to a role that could easily have been over the top. Many discontinuities mar the script, and there are plot elements which seem to come out of nowhere. But overall it is a movie worth seeing when the cupboard is bare.

It's 1964 The Bronx. Violent Heinz (John Turturro) returns to his neighborhood after getting out of prison for an attempted rape of Linda (Jodie Foster). Harry (Tim Robbins) rescued Linda the first time but has turn pacifist since then. Somebody shoots a teacher with an arrow. Castro and Willie are two kids blowing up a store sign with cherry bombs. They pick up Melanie and Brita who are out of it from sniffing glue. Heinz is after Linda again thinking he's in love with her. Jamie would like to be her boyfriend who protects her.

This movie is split in two. Turturro, Foster and Robbins inhabit one half. Turturro is great as the disturbed rapist. The penguins are weird. The acting is good but the script meanders a bit with a lot of strange turns. The other half has four lesser known actors. The girls are funny. It's odd that it seems to float on the surface of the movie without connecting to the other half. I do find the unknown actors' story interesting especially the elevator scene. I kept wondering what that story has to do with anything. The final reveal satisfied me to some extent. I wish it could have made more connections earlier in the movie.

Not worth going out of your way to see, but worth keeping on if it comes on on TV. Will provide mild pleasure to fans of Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins, and John Turturro (I enjoy all three). It would be interesting to watch this back-to-back with "Barton Fink", in which Turturro plays a polar opposite character.

The only other thing I have to say is that the score of this movie is one of the worst I've ever heard. I hadn't heard of composer James Newton Howard when I saw this, so I'm amazed he went on to respectable and (to my remembrance) perfectly well-scored films like "Pretty Woman", "My Girl", "Glengarry Glen Ross", "The Sixth Sense", and "Dinosaur".

His score in this film is so melodramatic, so overstated, so overly "hit-happy" (in the sense of hitting marks), and so cheesily realized, I'm amazed Howard wasn't relegated to scoring cheeseball B-flicks.

The kind of film that doesn't get made anymore in Hollywood. Original story, great atmosphere, wonderful acting. A somewhat quirky but still powerful human drama. Somehow, everything just fits in this film. Given the cast, it's hard to believe it is so little known. One to be re-discovered (hopefully). 8 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

Five Corners is a socially relevant film with a unique visual style

and a sense of humor. the cast is superb. Robbins, Foster and

Turturro give hints as to what they would go on to accomplish as

their careers grew. Todd Graff is also awesome but seems to be

having better luck as a screenwriter and producer. The two

females who play the glue sniffers are hilarious in roles that could

have easily be unsympathetic. The two mothers (Chalfant and

Gregorios) carry their weight in smaller but no less significant

roles. The two cops are straight out of the old crime dramas of the

1940's and 50's. There is also a good sense of 'place' in the film. I

got a genuine feel for the neighborhood where these characters

dwelt. I have also had the pleasure of being directed by Tony Bill in

a made for T.V. movie, A Chance of Snow. He's a professional. I

wish that he'd do more along the lines of Five Corners.