Actor John Slattery—probably best known for his role as RogerSterling on Mad Men—makes his feature film-directing debut with God’sPocket, a small, occasionally funny film about low-level criminals in aninsular Philadelphia neighborhood.
Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an outsider. He’s been living inGod’s Pocket a long time and is married to local Jeanie (Christina Hendricks),but everyone reminds him: “You ain’t from here!”
A professional down-on-his-luck crook, Mickey has money problems,and his life gets even worse when his stepson Leon (Caleb Landry Jones) iskilled on a construction site. The crew tells the cops it was an accident, butJeanie suspects foul play and asks Mickey to investigate.
There isn’t much in God’s Pocket we haven’t seen before. Intone, it bears a resemblance to Palookaville, a superior chronicle ofdim hoods in a dead-end existence. In plot, there’s a touch of Hitchcock’s TheTrouble with Harry. But Slattery has a good sense of pacing and the moviehums with dark humor, random violence and one surprise.
The cinematography, by Lance Acord, is too self-consciously dark,but the performances are spot on. Hoffman is appropriately haggard and JohnTurturro does his dumb-hooligan thing to perfection. It’s too bad they didn’thave a better story.
GOD'S POCKET
Directed by John Slattery
WithHoffman, Hendricks and Turturro
TheScreen
R
89min.
