The Florentine

I was very anxious to see this movie since it was filmed where I live, in the Lehigh Valley. It took a long time since it was filmed--about two years ago--to be released. And I must say I'm very happy with it. Great cast and it was a pretty involving story. The Florentine is mostly composed of short scenes between different pairs of actors, and it moves along at a pretty even pace, though it is perhaps a bit slow at times. Overall, I'd rate it a 7 out of 10.

This is a fantastic character driven film, with a great, slightly quirky script, some funny one liners and an excellent cast. Standing out among the uniformly excellent performances are the the great Chris Penn (brilliant as always), Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore and James Belushi (yes, you did read that right; James Belushi).The film follows a group of friends in the period leading up to a wedding and details how this event impacts on their lives. It's that simple but extremely effective. To say much more about individul story lines would give away too much plot, suffice to say that each character's story is interesting, different and watchable, there are no fillers here! The soundtrack, which features among others, Bruce Springsteen, is superb and really suits the film; one of the best matches of film and music I've heard. This is one of my favourite films and one that bears repeated viewings.

This movie tries to be great. It does not succeed but I'll take an effort like this over much of the movies I see out of Hollywood. I was reminded a great deal of the Deer Hunter (scenes in the PA town) in the look and feel of the movie. Beautiful acting by the great cast is the real strong point of this movie. The performances by Mike Madsen, Virginia Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jeremy Davies and Chris Penn are believable. The movie has some great shots and an incredible soundtrack lead by Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen. My only complaint is that it seems to have too much going on. There are at least seven different subplots in the movie. I got the feeling that much was cut out to make it to the 100 minute run time. This movie should have been allowed to be three hours. This is not the fault of the filmmakers. This is well worth the price of a rental or a purchase.

This character study/slice of life story is very well done. The cast is stellar and each of them portray their characters as real, the kinds of people we have all met at some time as we wander through life.

It is the first time I have seen the two Madsens together in a film hope to see them team up again. Sizemore, Halbrook, Penn et.al. all team up to serve a slice of life to the audience that shows real life to us, with it humor, tragedy, comedy, pathos, hopelessness and hopefulness.

This is well worth the cost of the rental.

I found the movie itself to be extremely boring. I've seen the movie two times and I really can't tell you what it's about. In summary, it's about a bunch of guys just hanging out.

What kept me captivated was the use of my town for the filming of the movie. When the production crew was in town filming, it definitely was a big to-do. I was somewhat disappointed that the movie never made it to the theatre's in this country.

Most of the movie was filmed in Easton, PA. The interior of the bar is Mother's Tavern in Centre Square, Easton. The exterior of the bar is the Mount Vernon Ale House, at 6th and Northampton St., Easton, PA. The neighborhood scenes were filmed in South Side Bethlehem, PA and the industrial scenes were filmed at the Bethlehem Steel facility.