John Slattery
God's Pocket

LA RECENSIONE

The film, the first feature-length directorial attempt by the talented John Slattery, I watched after choosing it two nights ago while going through the filmography of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who unfortunately passed away at the age of 47 due to an overdose. The film was presented at the “Sundance Film Festival” on January 17, 2014, just a couple of weeks before his untimely death in February.

The title translated as “God's Pocket” ironically draws inspiration from Devil's Pocket, which is the name of a poor working-class neighborhood in South Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. According to an urban legend, it was named so by a priest who said that the local youths were rough enough to steal from the devil's pocket.

In the film based on the book of the same name by Pete Dexter, all sorts of things happen. So, at the beginning, a white boy gets the first and last lesson of his life (well, I'd say the only one) from an “old negro” colleague of his at a brick manufacturing company, but he won't be able to benefit from it in the future given the circumstances of it… I won't reveal more about the plot, as I wouldn't want to fall into a spoiler as I did the last time. The fact is that a series of chain situations trigger, making the film flow quickly between jokes and twists before you even notice its albeit short duration.

Excellent performance by the always brilliant John Turturro, a friend of the protagonist played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Overall, everyone does well, giving the right color to that close-knit Irish/Italian/American community.

I was lucky to choose it because it is the typical film that I like, where the twisted tales of so-called “losers” are narrated, to whom rarely anything goes the right way in life, and that's it.