Chinese Coffee

A Broadway play turned into a film starring Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach. Think of this script as sort of a "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" between two heterosexual men. In the span of two hours (with flashbacks) layer after layer of their relatively short friendship is peeled away to raw feelings and pseudo-honest expressions until a few truths may have been reached. My only problem with it is in the style of the dialog – much of the time feeling the scripts are invisible but right in front of them. The timing is too "ready" and snappy, the comebacks polished, the exchanges sculpted with care. Had it (they) been relaxed, awkward, slow to respond, overly fast to respond, etc., I could've believed it. As it is, I never lost awareness this was a staged play.

This movie will require many revisits to fully appreciate it.

Tempted to call it 'My room' or heh - 'My room with a view'.

No spoilers here - not that this movie has any.

Do not miss this experience.

Forget waiting for Godot - I think he shows up in this one.

Just a masterpiece.

I really don't have any words beyond that, short of Thank you Al Pacino for working on this and bringing it to light.

All I can say is - watch this, maybe watch it over some period of time - in pieces.

This is the only movie I've ever gone to see twice at a film festival. It played in Toronto at the 2000 film festival, and my friend and I talked about it for hours afterwards. It's an invigorating movie, based on the play by Ira Lewis, about two bohemian guys, approaching 50, adrift in the early 80's, yet stuck in the past.

It's a "talkie" movie that could play on a double-bill with "My Dinner With Andre", a two-hander about a book Pacino has written and the first encounter with his friend, played by Jerry Orbach, since the Pacino character has lent it to him. But it's about so much more than that: it's about writing, dreaming, the creative process, relationships, loneliness, poverty, and finally, values. There isn't a moment that we're not involved with these two guys as they negotiate their relationship. The script crackles with life and wit, observation and nuance. Pacino first directed the great documentary "Looking For Richard", about how to approach staging a Shakespeare play. And here in "Chinese Coffee" he proves once again that he has a natural ability to tell a story in a completely fresh and interesting way, free of the constraints and pettiness of a routine plot.

If you're an actor and you haven't seen this movie, than shame on you, this one will have you going for days. And you'll return to it, too. It's a buried treasure in a great career for Pacino. I can't recommend it any higher.

I just watched this on DVD, and although it offered some interesting moments and insights, the dialog felt forced and the two main actors, both of whom have done great work in other projects, didn't seem to click. On the DVD, there's an epilogue in the "features" section in which Pacino, who also directed, wondered whether there were too many flashbacks. Actually, I thought the flashbacks were enlivening, enabling the story to be more involving than it might otherwise have been. Pacino also mentions that because of Orbach's "Law and Order" shooting schedule, they were forced to film 84 pages of dialog in 21 days, perhaps explaining, at least in part, why the film feels a little undercooked.

Harry Levine (Al Pacino) and Jake Manheim (Jerry Orbach), two unsuccessful writers, spend a cathartic evening arguing about money, aesthetics, their friendship, and Harry's new manuscript.

This film, based on a Broadway play (which had starred Pacino) is well-adapted by director Al Pacino (it helps that there was minimal stuff to direct). The origin as a play is fairly obvious, given how much is talk and how little is action (and I wonder if they had to add or modify scenes to create additional movement and scenery).

While not one of the greatest films ever, and not even one of Pacino's best, it has its moments and it is a great interaction between two people. If you like a lot of dialogue and bickering (think "Clerks" without all the dirty talk) and miss Jerry Orbach, this is the film for you.