Off the Black - Gioco Forzato

I enjoyed this movie. Nick Nolte gives his all and Trevor Morgan, as his reluctant protégé, gives a nuanced performance. Above all, I found OFF THE BLACK believable. The premise is a bit unlikely, but the actors are up to the challenge and the director knows where to take the story. It's not an expose of rural life, but it's not an exercise in sentiment, either. There are no set-pieces, one-liners or explosive confrontations, but there are truths. This is not one of these movies which focus so much on the negative as to numb the viewer. (I can name about ten movies in the last five years which do that.) But it does insist that life isn't perfect. The world of movie distribution isn't perfect either, which is why this didn't appear at the multiplex. But the DVD is there. Grab it.

This low-key character study, mixing humor and depression to a tender effect, paints a picture of this odd coupling between an elderly bitter drunk and the teenage pitcher responsible for vandalizing his property with a fairly charming success rate. Off the Black is a noteworthy minor work that completely thrives off of the gruff charisma lead Nick Nolte injects into an otherwise typically off-beat, indie-mannered screenplay dabbling in peculiar friendship. The script, while appealing enough to attract the likes of a fine actor such as Nolte (a fact rendered even more impressive given it is a first time feature effort from newcomer James Ponsoldt), really would not have been able to shine unless this perfect spot of casting had fallen into place.

The movie works, and works best, only when Nolte's scenery chewing antics are present, and in retrospect, the entire piece, while gracefully dealing in issues of family, isolationism, and connectivity, is really just a 90 minute excuse for one of America's bona fide talents to flex his considerable sandpaper-throated heft around in a role that was clearly conceived with him in mind. It is not so much Nolte's outstanding talent as a diversified actor that has made him survive and stay relevant these few decades as it has been his continuing effort to refine his natural instincts to help make his character's all seem completely believable and unquestionably human. With his continued approach for taking lower profile but higher developed material as of late, this performance continues the respectably eclectic, under-the-radar winning streak with a front and center take that puts the legend square in his element. Add the believable high school sensitivities from costar Trevor Morgan into the mix and we have a pleasing relationship movie with some dynamics that really work.

So where does Off the Black fail? Quite simply in all other scenes not showcasing these two main characters together. Ponsoldt tries to detail the reality behind the young man's life with little success, instead falling prey to the usual pratfalls of underdeveloped subplot and supporting roles. Directed in a straightforward way though at times impressively framed, any immersion garnered throughout the modest film will remain Nick Nolte's chief responsibility.

Can someone tell me if I missed something, or was it never explained who the single mother was, her relationship to the Nolte character, who the father of her kid was, and what was the point of her being in the movie at all if none of the above is explained. Her scenes seem like pointless time or sex fillers. I was much impressed by the movie although the plot really left a whole lot unexplained: Nolte is at his 40th high school reunion, which would make everyone at the reunion about 58 and their graduation year one of the hottest in the Vietnam War, the protest movement, rock and roll and the sexual revolution. Yet not one person has anything to say or recall about these things, and the music seems generic, not at all in tune with the late "60s.

The third time is the charm for James Ponsoldt, writer, director and actor in a really touching indie film that everyone can relate to. Maybe that is why it died at the box office after a few weeks without really making it big. It's a story that we can all find a piece of ourselves in.

Ray's life is in the crapper. he runs a junkyard by day and comes home to a house where he lives with an ugly dog and they both drown their sorrows in beer. He umps the local games and know that is just asking for trouble.

After the local team loses their chance at the State playoff, he catches one teen who papers his house. This teen's mom has run off and his day is pretty much dead to the world. The two- Ray and Dave - hit it off and Ray becomes a surrogate dad, while Dave becomes a surrogate son.

It's funny, tender, and sad. It will make you think about your own life and count your friends - or make some if you don't have enough.

2006 film Off the Black pre-dates Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino by about three or so years. The tale of a lonely, elderly man living in an American neighbourhood whom forms a bond with young-'un that recently wronged him, or attempted to, works, with hindsight, close to all but just as well here. The film is dominated by a wonderful performance from Nick Nolte, a character we observe suffering from isolation in a sparsely populated neighbourhood complimenting his sparsely populated life. His character's mental health and mental well-being is placed right on the spot from the off, one instance seeing him talk directly into a tripod mounted video camera as he reminisces about the day just gone by, a sort of video diary that enables him to talk; to interact; to just get his feelings out and known even if there's nobody any where near the general vicinity of his plot of land.

Off the Black tells the story of two rather different individuals at very different points in their life. For Nolte's Ray Cook, that ability to make a cut-and-thrust decision in the heat of the moment when the stakes are rather high is demonstrated in the film's first scene when, as a line judge in a baseball match, he calls foul on a home pitcher and they consequently loose the match. Very quickly we're given the sense that this guy is not afraid of making a call. As the film progresses, his efficiency to function as someone as honest and clear-cut dawn on us that these things may have contributed to his current situation. The pitcher, a certain Dave Tibbel (Morgan) who's still a high school student in comparison, takes it on with a few buddies to wreck a revenge on Cook's house – ultimately something that has more of an impact on Tibbel's life than he first presumed. Off the Black sees writer/director James Ponsoldt apply a very gradual, very natural arc to proceedings in using his ability to determine just how far Tibbel's inner-feelings are manifesting by providing a strand documenting the downfall in his friendship with his high-school pals as a friendship with Cook develops.

The beauty of Ponsoldt's script allows both characters to undergo respective changes without ever overbearing us with one or the other, with both characters and their progressions vying for power as the audience latch onto either one of the younger or the elder. After catching Tibbel in his yard immediately post-prank, six-shooter in hand, as graffiti covers the side of Ray's car and toilet roll covers both the roof of the house and a tree in the garden, forcing it to look more like a spaghetti junction from a distance, an agreement between the two sees Tibbel return to the scene of the crime and clear everything up rather than involve the police. Ray's decision to use police involvement as a threat more-so an idea of plan of action works just so as to get some regular company over at his place, and I have a feeling it was always going to be the way. As Ray himself observes: Dave may very well be a regular, average kid; but he's not yet at a point where he can make his own decisions, something that rings true nearer the very end when David is faced, in what is quite a jarring scene, with a pretty powerful decision that involves whether or not to play a video cassette.

In cutting away, briefly, to document the decline in relations with his friends; there is poignant sequence in which David and his own father share a scene with Ray close in-tow, a kitchen window acting as a physical barrier between David and his father played effectively in the few scenes he has by Timothy Hutton. This visual clue as to which male adult David is able to better connect with, and on a more consistently basis, tells us feature film débutant Ponsoldt has an astute eye for injecting life and meaning into dialogue sequences in which the most basic of human emotions are explored by way of the usual dialogue.

Like most of what Cook goes through in Off the Black, the film carries a wavy and distant feel; a tone of emptiness in a film which is full of rich character studies. While I think it's the better film, the pulpy and somewhat action orientated tone of 2009's Gran Torino combined such elements with it being a generally intimate film shot with a persistent use of the close up, applied to specific scenes when the elderly male and the younger male share experiences. Rather than maneuver down this route in which youth orientated antagonism was persistently hanging over the younger character of the piece, Off the Black instead incorporates longer shots of lonely houses backing onto train lines; calm, spitting sprinklers going about their business on lawns and on one occasion, Nolte's character perched on a jet ski amidst a wide open and lonely lake of gently lapping water. Where Gran Torino is aggressive and confrontational in an increasingly aggressive and transitional world, Off the Black takes a step backwards and just enjoys more the observing of these people in-between developing them. There is a moment about half way through when Cook has a crazy idea that Tibbel reacts to, only to later find out that in playing out the suggested role, he fills two gaps at once in not only his, but Cook's life as well. Off the Black is a rich and rather rewarding, burning drama which effectively looks at maintaining families and friendships to the best of some rather unintegrated person's ability.