Reviews

Popped up on my library's video shelf this week, and first review sums it up pretty well. Didn't cost me a nickel, and I still wanted my money back. Sorry, cheap shot, but no sense going over the sad details again, when I'm just going to say ditto.

You have to wonder why the film can't live up to Carnera's very interesting real life. His career was mostly notable for suggestions that he was just a marketing gimmick, created to take advantage of a giant with a glass jaw. Early fight victories against bimbos, to earn his title shot, suggested his schedule was put together by mobbed-up management, looking to profit from one last bet on the big fight. That aspect was portrayed best in Bogart's last film, "The Harder They Fall."

I just wanted to add one more juicy rumor, found in Walter Winchell biography (I think it was Gabler's, but not sure). Supposedly, Carnera fooled around with wife of Damon Runyon. Just one of multiple offenders, it seems, but Runyon took it personally and used his connections with Owney Madden to get revenge by setting up big fight in NY, wherein over-matched Carnera got his bell professionally rung.

Difficult to document in real-life history, so the story may be total BS. But to paraphrase a famous philosopher, when the rumor is more interesting than the fact, print the legend. And Carnera's legend is certainly more interesting than any alternate facts presented in this film. Eighty years after he fought, the big guy is once again badly-used by his promoters - this time without any payoff.

Those who thoroughly enjoyed this little gem - they got it. They were able to put the cynical critic within themselves on hold for a while and just sit there and enjoy experiencing it. Extraordinary cast. Delightful tone and mood. Wonderful ensemble acting.

And, yes, a plot line you've seen many, many times before (see other reviews or the synopsis for details; I won't rehash them here). Most of those who disliked "Gideon" called the story hackneyed, and I want to absolutely disagree with that description.

The dictionary definition of "hackneyed" means something beyond overly familiar. It also means that something is boring, not worth the time you may spend in watching it, and that it doesn't give you anything worthwhile to away with you. In this case, that's just wrong.

How many great westerns have been built of the same basic situation? Hell, how many great John Ford westerns cover the exact same ground over and over? How many times did Frank Capra do the same thing. (In fact, they both remade one of their earlier hits, almost line for line.) How many great heist films or chase flicks or love stories or vendetta sagas offer absolutely nothing new by way of plot or structure or style? There's always a way to offer something new to any story, and it's no great sin to try putting your own spin on even the most overcrowded category. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Frequently the end result is beyond awful, an insult to genre.

With Gideon," I think it does work. This isn't going to end up on the AFI's top 100 list, but it left me feeling refreshed, happy to have had a chance to take one more quick swim in a favorite old swimming hole.

And just a couple more notes. The fact that so many terrific older actors willingly lined up to participate, tells you that they didn't see this film as hackneyed. And their deeply moving performances made it clear that their participation was no quickie play-for-pay gig with them.

I also notice that as the years have passed, user reviews have become far more positive, most grading out in the 9 out of 10 range. This film has worn well, a familiar characteristic shared with very good films that didn't originally find their niche.

So, when it rolls around again on one of your cable channels, I highly recommend that you give it an open-minded look. It may become one of your little-known personal discoveries, or maybe just become one of your slightly guilty pleasures, but you'll surely find that it does offer something original and satisfying to take with you.