What is the key trait of being a loveably prolific screen actor. If you ask Michael Caine, it is probably something to do with the having the really prolifically (for which read bad) part of you career a good twenty years ago. These days Caine is rarely lambasted for making bad films, mainly because finally he has started to avoid them. If only he had chatted to his old mucker Al Pacino* on this front.
People I Know is a hard hitting satire/conspiracy thriller set in the closing days of Rudy Guliani’s reign in New York. Sorry, that is what it thinks it is. It is actually a rather dull journey into the slightly grey parts of the soul of a very messy PR with a ridicolous Gameboy Camera plot tagged on that would excite no-one. Pacino looks more like the Scarecrow in The Wizard Of Oz than anyone who could seriously hold down a job in public relations. The poorly written ego of the piece is set up so that we are suppose to feel sorry for him when in a drug, drink and stress addled state he stares on blankly uncomprehending when Tia Leone gets murdered. Sure its okay for him, he’s got a fax of Kim Basinger to go back to, its poor old Tia we worry about – whos eidea of superspydom is using a big chunky gameboy camera to record the filthy doings of New York politicos in a 25th floor opium den. Sound intriguing? Well luckily the interesting politics gets put on a back burner as we watch Pacino trying to do Nic Cage in leaving Las Vegas. Just without being in anyway likeable. The acting is a success when it gets to Pacino’s self loathing, I did not think anyone else could loath this character as much as I did at the point.
*Old Mucker on Stella Street obv. My brain cannot actually place them in a flick together. Feel free to contradict this.