Durant's Never Closes

Travis Mills did an amazing job directing this film. He is talented and insightful. Tom Sizemore plays a legendary restaurater, ladies man with ties to the mafia. He seems to easily fit easily into the era. His rough around the edges character does not tend to be likable. Yet, you feel for him in his scene with his ex-wife, even though he causes his own downfall. A great performance. The cinematography by Nicholas Fornwalt is outstanding!

I promise to keep my review short for you the reader. I am not writing this as an audition for a film critic position or to somehow show off my writing skills. I am writing this to let the audience know that I enjoyed "Durant's Never Closes," an Independent film starring Tom Sizemore shot by Travis Mills & Running Wild Films.

Yes, I am a Tom Sizemore fan, and if you are as well, you will not be disappointed. I have also seen other projects of Mr. Mills, and as usual, he always does great work.

The film takes you into a part of Jack Durant's life as owner of the famous Phoenix restaurant Durant's. And while you cannot fit everything into a feature film, this film does a great job of bringing the human quality to Jack Durant, letting you not only see his tough guy bravado, but his weaknesses as well.

I would highly recommend this film to film fans. Hats off to Tom Sizemore, Travis Mills & the whole Running Wild Films team!!

Durant's takes a complicated man and makes an adventure of a film. A prolific graduate of Arizona State University's film school, Travis Mills has brought a piece of Arizona history to the screen with daring independent filmmaking. It's not always easy to tell where/when we are, but the film manages to find pivotal scenes of this man's life. It turns out that Jack Durant was an Arizona legend for good reason. As we move from moment to moment around his life, Tom Sizemore shows us the good, the bad and the ugly of Jack Durant, a figure bigger than life, but Michelle Stafford's performance is the one to watch. Peter Bogdonavich also makes an appearance. Definitely worth a look!

I was waiting for this one. And it didn't disappoint. Growing up in Phoenix in later part of the 70's and early 80's. It felt right. You can really feel this moment in time. Some will find it confusing. If you are just a summer block buster type. More of thought provoking tear jerker. 9 out of 10. More studio crispness and it would be a honest 10!

This film does a great disservice to the legacy of Jack Durant but also the restaurant that bears his name to this day. The story is convoluted and uses flashbacks and dream sequences too much making the main story disjointed. The IMDB reviews praising this film are mostly from Travis Mills, the director or people he's conned into thinking he's some great filmmaker. If not for relentless self aggrandizing promotion this would be relegated to the scrap heap of failures. The restaurant and estate of Jack Durant wanted nothing to do with this film and the critics who've seen it think it misses badly. In the end you are better off avoiding this since at the end you'll probably wonder what you just saw, and not in a good way.