Laugh-free paranoid comedy has self-generated star manqué Griffin Dunne (think Dudley Moore sans skills) as a midtown Milquetoast who gets in over his head on a date-from-Hell in Soho that runs far into the WeeGee hours. With a dream cast and Martin Scorsese’s street moves, plus silky lensing via Michael Ballhaus, it must have looked great on paper. But they’re all thumbs at keeping the mechanics of boulevard farce afloat, even when that boulevard is Avenue A as seen a through a glass darkly. Note how Scorsese wrecks Dunne’s showstopping moment by turning a tour de force verbal recap of his disastrous night into a skimpy montage. Hey, Marty, sometimes a talking head can be cinematic. René Clair, where art thou?
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Jonathan Demme's SOMETHING WILD/'86 gets a lot closer to the mark.
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