Something to watch tonight: Homicide

We don’t talk much about David Mamet these days but for a while he was all the rage. Mamet reg­u­lar Joe Mantegna plays Bobby Gold, a hom­icide detect­ive and host­age nego­ti­at­or who is on his way to a big bust when he comes across a small-time con­veni­ence store murder. Because the vic­tim is the eld­erly Jewish pro­pri­et­or of the store and Gold is also Jewish (although non-observing and not par­tic­u­larly inter­ested) his bosses take him off the big case and put him on the loc­al one – to his frus­tra­tion and disappointment. But the plot imme­di­ately thick­ens when Gold dis­cov­ers evid­ence that the vic­tim had been traf­fick­ing weapons for a Jewish group attempt­ing to defend their com­munity from anti­semit­ic viol­ence. Their fer­vour appeals to Gold, who struggles to fit in with either the police cul­ture or his eth­nic back­ground, and he is unwisely drawn into help­ing them bomb a neo-Nazi centre and break his own code by hand­ing over evid­ence in the murder case. Ultimately, he real­ises that the group’s single-minded, multi-generational, com­mit­ment to Zionism (or anti-antisemitism if you want to loc­al­ise things) might not be con­sist­ent with, you know, the rule of law, by which time he’s already dropped the ball on both the invest­ig­a­tions he was sup­posed to be involved with. Mamet was on an abso­lute tear in this peri­od, Homicide com­ing after his first two crackerjack fea­tures, House of Games and Things Change. The film was nom­in­ated for the Palme d’Or that year and is not­able for Mamet’s nuanced take on being a Jew in America. His views – shall we say – hardened a lot after 9/11. Where to watch Homicide Physical media: In the Imprint Films After Dark Neo-Noir Collection Three box­set along with White Sands, The Crossing Guard, Heaven’s Prisoners, Under Suspicion and Dirty Pretty Things. Aotearoa: Not cur­rently avail­able online Australia: Digital rent­al from Google or YouTube Canada: Streaming on Criterion Channel, Hollywood Suite, Crave or CTV (free with ads) Ireland: Not cur­rently avail­able online India: Not cur­rently avail­able online USA: Streaming on Criterion Channel or Fubo UK: Digital rental Further reading Glenn Kenny, wrote about Homicide in 2009 for his blog Some Came Running which is now archived on this site: Of all of Mamet’s self-written fea­ture films, this strikes me as the most thoroughly,well, Mametian in terms of per­form­ance style and writing—the flat, almost incan­tory deliv­ery of dia­logue com­bined with the iambic rhythms and the repe­ti­tion of phrases: “I’ll find the killer. I’ll find the killer, I swear.” The effect is even more bra­cing than it was in House of Games, I think in part because House of Games was intro­du­cing view­ers to an unfa­mil­i­ar, cir­cum­scribed world—the mien of the super-secretive con man—that the view­er had few expect­a­tions about as far as beha­vi­or was con­cerned. Much of Homicide takes place in a pre­cinct house and on the street, and the the­at­ric­al­ity of the exchanges in these set­tings we’re famil­i­ar with from cop shows and cop movies is bra­cing, maybe a little ali­en­at­ing at first. But it’s Mamet’s world, and he’s got utter con­fid­ence about how things work in it, and the film builds a unique, almost hyp­not­ic power. An unusu­al pic­ture, a unique pic­ture, one that’s cer­tainly well worth reviv­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about.