TIFF Review : "'Staten Island"

Excerpted from A Nutshell Review
posted by Stefan S, 10.22.09

Review of "Staten Island", screened at Tokyo Int'l Film Festival

Written and directed by James DeMonaco, this is one quirky crime caper that tells of 3 individuals in a non-linear fashion, which brings to mind something like at attempt at Pulp Fiction especially with its hilarious inter-titles used as character introductions, breaking up the narrative into a before-and-after a pivotal opening where a mobster violently interrogates a small time crook because the latter had done something terrible to the former's mom.

You know that's plenty of black comedy going for the film with its documentary introduction, which explains in general just what Staten Island is all about in socio-geographic terms, where we're told that it's basically a crime burrough with the highest concentration of gangsters and mob killings, with areas named after famous kill grounds. It set the stage for what's to come as a theme, where it's about failure and the results that stem from such failure.

Vincent D'Onofrio plays Parmie, a mafioso type who sets goals constantly to achieve for vanity reasons, such as his world record breaking attempt at being a man capable of holding his breath underwater for 9 minutes. But in fact it's quite a shrewd skill, especially when an assassination attempt proved on hindsight that this is is of value to anyone who knows they're on someone else's hit list. He sets yet another more ambitious plan, and that's to start a bloodbath with rival gangs in order to take control over Staten Island's underworld, a plan that brings about hesitation from his crew. Unfortunately he becomes disillusioned by a keen betrayal, and in an about turn sets another goal which tangents his character off quite a bit, and that's to become a tree hugger. Full review

"Staten Island"on DVD-
Released 12.22.09