Top of Sidebar
Mission Statement
Do It Yourself Tips and Tricks
Books, Equipment, Software, and Training Reviews
Film Critiques
Community Section
Savings and Links
Editorials
Archives
Bottom of Sidebar
Back to the Home Page
   Final Film Critique: 
   Waiting on Alphie

   Director:
Kevin Hicks
   Expected Rating: R due to language and                                violence
   Distribution: No Exclusive Distribution
   Budget: $20,000
   Genre: Crime/Mystery

   Running Time: 80 minutes

   Release Dates: November 15, 2005
   Website: http://www.waitingonalphie.com
   Trailer: http://www.waitingonalphiemovie.com

   Review Date:
December 15, 2005
   Reviewed By: Jeremy Hanke

Waiting on Alphie is the story of a has-been criminal named Alphie who's been booted out of his hometown of Chicago and now makes his living as a two-bit assistant to one of the crime families of New York. One day, as Alphie is grabbing a bite to eat at his regular spot at a little diner in a rundown mall, Gus-a former lieutenant of his from Chicago-shows up and sits across the table from him. Gus explains that he's been sent to keep Alphie in hand while a mob investigation is going on involving Alphie's whereabouts 10 days prior. According to Gus, a phone in the diner will ring when the investigation is completed. The voice on the other end will tell Gus to either cap Alphie or give him an airline ticket. If Alphie tries to flee, then Gus is to cap him. Other than that, the two of them are to just stay put.

When the phone fails to ring for an ungodly amount of time, both Alphie and Gus find themselves pulled into conversations about their past, morality, breakfast food, and the state of the world today. The wait is further complicated by the fact that Gus never eats when he's on a job, and he's slowly getting more and more cranky as the night wears on, especially since Alphie seems bent on ordering everything on the menu. To make matters worse, their waiter for the evening is a sullen, neo-hippie sporting a variety of facial piercings. (Think Randall from Clerks with darker hair and multiple lip, nose, and ear-rings.)

Content
Whenever I sit down to critique a film, I watch the film by myself the first time through, eyes wide open for both successes and problems. With this site devoted to such a wide variety of Indie film, I never know what I'm going to encounter when I screen a film for the first time.

As I let Waiting on Alphie pull me in, I found a really great, quirky wit in Kevin Hicks' screenplay that reminded me of a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. While I appreciated this humor myself watching the movie solo, I really took note of how well it interacted with an audience when I sat down to watch it with a small group of reviewers for my second viewing. The lithe dialogue and non-sequitor bunny trails made Waiting on Alphie as fascinating to watch the second time as it was the first time.

Unlike many Indie films that have a few well realized characters and at least one or two that end up being boat anchors, Waiting on Alphie had a singularly believable cast throughout. Of course, they really only had three main characters, but the fact that each one stayed in a very interesting place throughout the film is a real testament to the triune of good acting, good directing, and good writing. The chemistry that unfolds between Gus and Alphie is interesting as the two old-garde mobsters feel one another out in a way that is reminiscent of Vincent and Jules in Pulp Fiction. On the other hand, the chemistry between the more old-school Gus and the New Hippie, vegan server is hilarious, allowing a very Clerks-ish 'I hate customers'-vibe to surface. (And whenever the air gets too tense between Gus and Alphie, Mr. Hicks is always willing to allow that moment to become a comic interlude where we find out what the server is doing to other customers or the kitchen staff. The server character is so much fun, in fact, that you can't help hoping that Mr. Hicks will make a spin-off movie entirely about him!)

Gus is a hitman that's not
having a very good day...
...and Alphie's a has-been
that's afraid his life is about to end.

Despite all the good elements in the film, there are a few problems. However, before I go further, I must warn any readers that haven't watched this film yet that there are spoilers ahead. Due to the problems that surface in the film, it is not possible for me to critique them without giving them away. As such, you can skip into the visual look section if you would prefer not to read the spoilers.

Mr. Hicks manages to weave a compelling story through a largely dialogue and editing driven film, bringing you to the end of the tale with some very interesting twists. Unfortunately, when he gets to the end and everything looks like it is about to be wrapped up in a satisfactory manner, he throws in one too many twists.

He basically ran into the same flaw that the movie, The Ring, had: the flaw of continuing on after it should have ended. In The Ring, the end of the film should have come when the water swirls down the drain (which is a ring symbol that they open the film with) and the mystery has been solved. However, for some unexplained reason, the film lurches out of a suspense movie with a definable ending for another five minutes into a true horror movie that has no ending. (The actual reason for The Ring's ending is a confusing psychology conflict that boils down to a translation problem from the Japanese Ringu and would take far too much time to recap here.)

To actually include the spoiler that I forewarned of before, Mr. Hicks has followed a very nice use of writing symmetry for this film. When the film starts out, Gus, the assassin, is the strong one, whereas Alphie, the has-been, is the weak one. However, by the end of the movie, Alphie has used his brains to become the strong one despite the Gus's superior brawn. Moreover, in a well choreographed bit of foreshadowing in the middle of the movie, we find out that Alphie is willing to stake his life on good winning over evil, and we're given no reason to believe that Alphie isn't the 'more good' of the two main characters (even though he's never made out to be a saint).

Had the film concluded there, with Alphie in a place of strength through his cunning over Gus' thuggery, we would have found a very satisfying conclusion, especially since no one who watches a crime film ever expects the film to end without one of the main characters ending up dead. The very act of concluding the film with a maddeningly well orchestrated truce that allows Alphie to get out of New York and leaves Gus stranded there would have been brilliantly unexpected.

However, as I mentioned before, the film gets to the end, and then keeps going.

Mission | Tips & Tricks | Equipment & Software Reviews | Film Critiques
Groups & Community | Links & Savings
| Home


Contact Us Search Submit Films for Critique