687. DINER (1982)

Running Time: 110 minutes
Directed By: Barry Levinson
Written By: Barry Levinson
Main Cast: Mickey Rourke, Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly
Click here to view the trailer

LEVINSON WEEK: PART ONE

Sure, Barry Levinson isn’t the biggest name in the movie industry and making him my final tribute of the season is a bit of a lackluster send off. However, he IS the director of “Rain Man” and that, in my book, garners him, at least, a few points.

In detailing the plot of “Diner” it would be easier for me to list the primary characters and talk about each of their roles and since I’m in the home stretch, I’m all about making things as easy as possible. Why would it be easier? Because the film is really only about a group of friends who spend a lot of their time hanging out at a “Diner”. There’s many different plotlines and the film lacks a complete, central story, therefore, outlining each character and talking about their role in the film makes sense:

Robert “Boogie” Sheftell (Mickey Rourke): Boogie is a compulsive gamble who spends his days working at a hair salon and his nights attending law school. Over the course of the film, Boogie makes a bet, loses a bet and fears for his life when he realizes he can’t come up with the $2000 to pay his bookie. Meanwhile, he also bets with his friends about how far he can get on his dates with Carol Heathrow.

Edward “Eddie” Simmons (Steve Guttenberg): Eddie is engaged and lives with his mother. He sleeps until two in the afternoon and has hesitancy about his impending nuptials. He’s also a big Baltimore Colts fan (the film is set in the 50s, in case I forgot to mention that) and before he’ll marry his fiancé, Elyse, he plans to make her take a football quiz.

Laurence “Shrevie” Schreiber (Daniel Stern): I’ve always been a big Daniel Stern fan and am of the opinion that he was a severely underutilized actor. Sure, he got breaks in “Home Alone” and on “The Wonder Years”, but I feel he could’ve gone a bit further. Shrevie is the only married man of the group, but his marriage isn’t all roses and kittens. He misses the days when he courted his then girlfriend/now wife and dreads the mundane life that his marriage provides him with.

Timothy “Fen” Fenwick Jr. (Kevin Bacon): Bacon looks super young here. Fen doesn’t have much of a role in the film, he’s kind of just there. He drinks a lot, starting early in the morning and finishing…early in the morning.

Modell (Paul Reiser): Apparently Levinson ran out of time and didn’t have time to think up a proper name for Reiser’s character. Ahh the 80s, when Resier starred in multiple “must see” movies (see “Beverly Hills Cop”). Again, Modell is kind of just there. He has a few idiosyncrasies, which the group love and hate him for and I swear, I thought for sure that Levinson was going to develop a homosexual relationship between him and Eddie….not that there’s anything wrong with that!

William “Billy” Howard (Tim Daly): I always wanted to check out the TV show “Wings”, yet as I write this I’ve never seen a full episode. Billy is the oldest of the group and is in love with a girl, who announces that she’s pregnant, but really wants nothing to do with Billy. He spends the film sulking about that.

So there you have it, that’s the cast and I have to say that the film really comes off like the extended pilot episode of a new television series. Like I said, there really isn’t any sort of point A to point B plot and rather, the film is filled with a bunch of little vignettes and antecdotes. Also, “Diner is VERY formulaic and nothing much really happens to these people, nor am I truly convinced that I should even care what happens to them. Why do these characters deserve my time and attention, what’s so special about their story that I should watch? When the most gripping idea you have for me is a gambler’s inability to pay his bookie and a newlywed’s cold feet, then you really need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that hasn’t been done thousands of times in the past. Oh and did anyone else think they were going to kill someone off at the end? Man, I really thought I had this film pegged and I really thought we’d be seeing a funeral scene. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

I’m not saying that the movie is particularly bad. It runs it’s course and it’s not THAT offensive. Nothing happens, but unless you put a lot of thought into that, it’s not easily noticeable. The acting isn’t particularly good (I just can’t believe that I’m forced to include Steve Guttenberg’s name on a blog that has , multiple times, also included the name Henry Fonda…*sigh*), but Mickey Rourke isn’t bad and it makes you happy that he’s had a career resurgence lately. Kevin Bacon holds his own too and it’s easy to see that these two would be the two that would shine the brightest, out of all these supposed stars. Oh and Ellen Barkin’s in the cast too (as Shrevie’s wife) and it made me wonder whatever happened to her? Has she been around and I just missed her, or did she fall off the face of the Earth? She was certainly a looker in the 80s and makes me wish that THE BOOK had included a personal favorite of mine – “Sea of Love”.

RATING: 6.5/10  Lets call that a review. “Diner” is an okay movie, but I expected more from the director of “Rain Man”. Next up in “Levinson Week”: “The Natural”. 

MOVIES WATCHED: 581

MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 420

November 17, 2012  8:01pm