Mac (1992)

Mac: Directed by John Turturro. With Nicholas Turturro, Matthew Sussman, Steven Randazzo, Ellen Barkin. Mac is the ambitious, overbearing, irresistible oldest of three brothers who struggle against all odds to scrape together enough money to start their own business in Queens, New York.

“I think thereu0026#39;s a tendency for actors who decide to direct their own movies to leave absolutely everything up to their colleagues, the actors, including driving the story. I couldnu0026#39;t tell if this film was scripted or improvised, but thereu0026#39;s an awful lot of long, no-dialogue shots of faces and activity that donu0026#39;t advance the plot, what there is of it. A surprising amount of what dialogue there is, is in untranslated Italian-which didnu0026#39;t bother me, except for the fact that-again-it didnu0026#39;t advance the story much. After about half an hour of establishing 4 or 5 characters without much action or tension, I still couldnu0026#39;t tell where the film was going. It seems to be about holding oneu0026#39;s work to high standards, but then what? No dramatic tension, no imbalance to resolve, no conflicts to keep track of. Two stars for good acting and competent staging; two stars for lousy script, absent directing, and nonexistent editing. I canu0026#39;t be accused of spoiling anything if I merely point out that this film left me plenty of time between dialogue and story elements to ask myself about the plot, the story, the acting, the characters…it didnu0026#39;t draw me in at all.”