Tutti contro Harry

This little indie sleeper--made in the sixties, died immediately, was resurrected in the 1989, and is now part of the New Yorker Video series--is distinguished by an original satiric story and a fine, sympathetic performance by Martin Priest who plays the title character Harry Plotnick, a middle-aged New York Jewish racketeer.

The film begins as Harry is being released from prison after a nine-month stay. His chauffeur immediately tells him some of his numbers runners have jumped ship and his gambling flotilla is in danger of sinking. They pick up a couple of his lieutenants who speak Spanish (which Harry doesn't understand) and they more or less ignore him. Harry quickly learns that they and his other runners think of him as washed up. Meanwhile he runs into a couple of his ex-wives and discovers that he has grandchildren. Now a rather unusual mid-life crisis ensues for Harry. He wants to give up the rackets and become an upstanding member of the community, to attend weddings and bar mitzvahs. Just how difficult that is and what transpires form the comedic story of the film.

Director Michael Roemer who also wrote the script uses authentic New York/New Jersey lifestyle details from the sixties (contemporary to him and therefore without the strained or flashy, obtrusive effect we often encounter in period piece movies) to spin his tale. There is a documentary feel to the film overlaid with light-hearted irony. The camera work is amateurish at times and the abrupt cuts lend a kind of jumpy, somehow authentic feel to the story. This can be seen as a satire of gangster films with the warm-hearted and gentle Harry as a kind of anti-Al Capone.

Bottom line: wryly original.

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If there were such a thing as a Jewish New Wave film movement in the late 60's, director Michael Roemer would certainly have been in its vanguard. His long lost, low budget comedy about a strictly small time New York City crook readjusting to life after a nine month prison stretch recalls some of the stylistic freedom of early Truffaut, while at the same time anticipating by two decades the deadpan anti-plot devices of Jim Jarmusch. In place of a story it offers a number of grotesque, eccentric characters, all bouncing off each other in unpredictable and unlikely places: a lingerie show, a dog obedience school, a bar mitzvah, and so forth. What the film lacks is enough substance to justify the overwhelming praise that greeted its belated release in 1989; it's fun, but at the same time it's also a negligible experience. The story behind the film is actually more interesting than the film itself, and after twenty years all the tardy attention probably benefited Roemer more than the movie-going public.

I love the feel of Roemer's second film, between its non-professional cast and how it immersed the viewer into the streets of New York and various aspects of Jewish culture. The black and white cinematography was fantastic and probably the biggest highlight. Oh, there were some amusing moments and also pathos in the main character's situation, having just gotten out of prison but seeing others move in on his illegal businesses, and connecting to his ex-wife and adult children who don't even know him. However, while I was constantly engaged, I don't think the film went to particularly interesting places with the story, squandering at least some of its potential. I kind of wish Ben Lang had appeared in more films too, he was so charismatic as Leo, the sunny friend with a genuine smile.

I Only heard of this recently - once again thanks to my favorite NYC theater, Film Forum - and I wish I had seen it years ago. The Plot Against Harry (the title itself seems like a kind of cruel joke that could have been played on Harry, or the name of a podcast about him, like who is the plotter or ployee) is a deadpan comedy that is not shot like a documentary but is peopled like it, and is packed full of incident and (in Yiddish speak) mishegas and tsuris (sic) for one man to deal with in 80 some odd minutes.

Thankfully, Michael Roemer, who I imagine took on a herculean feat with a low budget to direct so many regular people in big celebration after big gathering scene (location work that would make Lumet's head spin), and Priest is close to perfect at looking and behaving so dejectedly and miserable in scene after scene even as you can guess he has brought some of this on himself, you can't help but feel a little bad for him... until things just get more cruel and ironic. I mean, Harry's heart (mild spoiler, it's not the heart) is the least of his worries with his ex and his estranged kids and that one guy who was probably an extra in Goodfellas, etc.

Think like, I dunno, a less visually dazzling but no less biting East Coast late 60s Coen brothers - this is up there with the most relentlessly bittersweet (mostly bitter) Jewish films I've ever seen, and I mean that as a compliment. I'm sure the Safdies studied this like a conspiracy nut with the Zapruder footage, even if this is less anxious and more doomed in how the filmmaker treats its hapless anti-hero.

The Plot Against Harry is an extraordinary, forgotten film that pops up from time to time in revival houses and late night television and is not to be missed. It's as if Scorcese did comedy - a great slice of criminal life and the true criminal mind - very reminiscent of today's "Sopranos" on HBO.