God's Pocket

Once I realized this was a very dark comedy about three quarters of the way through, I enjoyed it even more than I had been up that point. I'm going to methodically make my way through Hoffman's films and this one (which I'd never seen) was a great place to start. His Mickey Scarpato in this film couldn't be any more different from Phil Parma in Magnolia (my favorite of his roles), and he's fantastic. Great performances also from Christina Hendricks, Richard Jenkins, John Turturro, Eddie Marsan, and--in just a few short scenes--Caleb Landry Jones continues to impress me with how well he plays "awful."

I was brought up thinking that a book had to have a story line packed full of memorable incidents, poems had to rhyme, and films were supposed to be full of action to be appreciated. I'm glad to say that I grew out of that 'please me quick' attitude. Yes if I'm in the mood for a dose of that I can gladly take it, but these days you are likely to overdose on that. I tend to seek films like this these days and I'm not at all disappointed. God's Pocket has been explained a few times already so I won't bother to do that. I'm just here to try and encourage others to enjoy this film for what it is, a great little offbeat film with tremendous characters, an everyday story of working people that takes a few twists and turns here and there, with a lovely dark streak running right through it. I for one loved it.

very very watchable movie probably best described as a black comedy drama which happens to be Hoffmans last role in a movie.

boy! let me start off by saying that i'm a Chinese American that grew up in a middle class neighborhood just like this...an Italian neighborhood pre-dominantly. underneath this middle class surface there was so much dirt around that it wasn't funny. everybody knew somebody that was crooked, backstabbing, lying, cheating and doing shady things was the norm.

i remembered when i was a young teen...one day a African American boy walked his Italian girlfriend home to her neighborhood and the neighborhood boys threw him off the top of a building and killed him. these motherf**kers thought they were invincible and doing wrong was doing right.

this movie got it just right, the neighborhood and the grit and grime. the only good guy was the construction company owner...everybody else was a scumbag including and especially the young man who died at the construction yard at the start of the movie. that's the funny thing about life in my neighborhood...you know inside that your child is a scum*g, but he's still a saint in the parents eyes...LOL!

all i'm saying is that i grew up in a neighborhood like this and the movie hits home. these motherf**kers were a biased and racist bunch of bullies. i mean how hard is it for a mob to beat up one man? then they feel good about it.

anybody that lived in a neighborhood like this would get what the movie is about. a totally depressing movie brought to life by a great ensemble cast. it didn't hurt that there were some deliciously funny black and comedic moments in it.

all in all...i totally recommend this movie, i mean even if you don't like the subject matter, there were some great actors and actresses in it, close or at the top of their game.

Like a Bukowski poem set to music and sung by Tom Waits, a rancid, deep dark comedy of errors in an urban hell. An amazing ensemble of great actors. Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Richard Jenkins, Eddie Marsan and many more of some of the finest drunks and lowlifes you'll see on film. Christina Hendricks, unfortunately, is out of place and out-skilled. The script walks with a limp and probably has a disease.

"Until recently you only had to die once in this city, even if you came from God's Pocket." Mickey Scarpato (Hoffman) is the step-father to a kid that no one in the city really likes. The son gets killed at work one day but no one will tell the truth about what happened. This doesn't bother Mickey and he is ready to bury him right away but his wife and the boys mother demands the truth. Mickey does what he can to find out what happened but between finding out the truth, trying to make his wife happy and finding a way to pay for the funeral things begin to pile on top of him. When his wife turns to news reporter Richard Shellburn (Jenkins) for additional help things really begin to spiral out of control. This is a tough movie to review. I did think the movie was good and tense but did move very slow and was hard to stay focused on. The acting was great and this was very realistic but again though the pacing made it hard to stay engrossed in. Hoffman did a great job of playing someone who seemed lost and under an immense amount of stress and Jenkins was great as a sleazy reporter. The number one reason to watch this is for the acting. The movie itself, again, is pretty good but it is one you have to be in the mood for otherwise it will be a struggle to make it through. Overall, a movie that is worth seeing if you are in the mind set for it. It's too bad that Hoffman died because he is great in roles like this. I give it a B-.