Glen Barnes (John Patrick Hayden) has just gotten out of prison and returned to
his home turf of The Deuce. Trying (but
not very hard) to reconnect with his estranged brother Tom (Lance Lewman) who leads a gang of young
toughs now, Glen reopens his father’s theater, The Garage, pissing off rival
club owner Leonard Farrell (Michael
Speero), whose Love Connection strip club across the street has basically
become a brothel. Sparks are gonna fly!
So, this is Tim Kincaid’s Riot on 42nd
Street (aka New York 42nd
Street), and it plays by the “Badass Returns Home to Clean Shit Up”
rulebook, while it also has enough wrinkles of its own (intentional or not) to
make it a very odd duck, indeed (a running theme in Kincaid’s oeuvre). For
starters, Glen was imprisoned for a crime he did commit, killing a
pusher in his family’s theater (and in front of an entire audience of
witnesses; not smart). Many times, this
type of character either was wrongly convicted or is trying to atone for the
crime he committed and how his absence affected his family. Glen has no regrets about killing the
pusher. In fact, it never comes up
except as exposition. If anything, the
audience is asked to see it as completely justified, because, naturally,
pushers are scum. Glen does try to make
amends with his brother Tom, but it’s so halfhearted and undeveloped (as so
much of this film is), it doesn’t even satisfy as the genre cliché it clings to
so tightly. Of course, the first two
things that Glen does on arriving back in town are meet up with an old friend
from the streets (Thelma, who works for Farrell and is played by Ceal Coleman) and beat up a mini-gang
of hoodlums. Then Glen’s old flame,
Michelle (Kate Collins), shows up to
fling herself into his arms and completely abandon her career as a cop (to the
eternal disgust of her partner Frank [Jeff
Fahey]). These things happen, I
suppose. And none of this means anything
other than as scenes in a film.
Yet, the movie doesn’t fully
commit to any of the clichés it requires as a cash-in action romp. Farrell dresses smoothly, and he has a hot girlfriend
(the ever-lovely Frances Raines,
grand-niece of the late, great Claude
Raines, and whom you may recall from the “quirky” slasher The Mutilator) whom he treats like
shit. He has a few skanky, musclebound
henchmen (most prominently the actually creepy Remy [the fantastically named Carl Fury]) whom he also treats like
shit. And that’s the sum total of
Farrell. He has no personality other
than thinly concealed rage and full-blown rage.
He has no charm whatsoever, and his few meetups with Glen are tensionless
snarkfests. Farrell has no sense of
subtlety, no head for subterfuge, and since the cops who exist in this
cinematic world don’t do a fucking thing to uphold the law, it doesn’t matter
anyway. For example, if you were a cop,
and you were present when a decapitated head was delivered to your boyfriend
directly from his sworn enemy, wouldn’t you do something - anything -
coplike? Does your commitment to
upholding the law suddenly vanish when your old boyfriend reappears in your
life? Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. The one action beat the film comes close to
getting right is the massacre at Glen’s club (you didn’t think there wasn’t
going to be one, did you?). It’s filled
with slow-motion gunfire and squib-covered bodies jerking in reaction. It’s also overlong, which if you thought a
sequence like this couldn’t be, you’d be wrong.
Furthermore, it’s also bewilderingly intercut with a local rock band
performing some anonymous songs, strippers doing their routines (one of the few
things that actually feels authentic), and a standup “comic” (Zerocks [get it?], playing himself) shot
in direct address doing jokes so stale, you’ll want to check them for mold and
rot. Last, but by no means least, the
titular “riot” is just a bunch of unpaid extras who are unable to lift their
legs high enough to deliver convincing kicks (there’s one guy in particular who
consistently draws your eye in this regard; you’ll know him when you see him) or
who know anything even remotely about selling an onscreen punch (and part of
this is clearly the filmmakers’ fault; okay, the whole thing is) prancing
around each other like this was Michael
Jackson’s Beat It video without
the commitment to just calling it “fight dancing.”
Every character in Riot on 42nd Street is a
cypher. Glen delivers nothing but blank,
open-mouthed stares in lieu of acting throughout the entire movie, and these
are met and returned by equally vapid gazes from Michelle, completely not
heating up the screen or creating any chemistry whatsoever. Glen’s employees are only distinct for their
ethnicities (a white, a black, an Asian) and their willingness to throw down as
required by the script. The one
character in the film that is in any way compelling is 42nd Street itself. There is a plethora of shots, clearly done
guerilla style, that showcase The Deuce from this time period. These are the heartbeat of the film. Seeing the bustle of bodies hustling and
mingling, the multitude of grindhouse theater marquees, and the unabashed
selling of sleazy sex every few inches is the star attraction. It’s this grimy, desperate milieu that makes the
film watchable, and Kincaid wisely
keeps returning to it, even though it’s little more than filler in a film whose
narrative is a string cut into uneven lengths.
I love seeing New York from this era when it conveyed life and menace
simultaneously, vibrant and rundown all at once. Nevertheless, I know I wouldn’t have wanted
to actually live there, because I’m pretty much a scaredy cat. New York in cinema through the Seventies and
Eighties is, for my money, the purest form of vicarious living you can
get. You have all the danger, the grit,
and the debauchery, and you can revel in it from the safety of your couch. With that in mind, if you choose to watch
this particular film, do it for the right reasons. Otherwise, I can’t be blamed for your boredom
and apathy.
MVT: 42nd Street
in the late Eighties. It’s the sole
thing in this film that actually feels alive.
Make or Break: The opening credits
(rendered in graffiti-style lettering) unspool along with shots of the area and
some colorful, non-sequitur scenarios like a hooker who keeps beating up
potential customers and a three-way brawl on roller skates. The rest of the film isn’t as interesting.
Score: 5.75/10
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