Narcissus and Unrequited Love
What do can do when you own a construction company and you want your kid to have a better life. You know, so he doesn’t have to work so hard, 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year like his old man. He’s a good kid, you know – thoughtful, almost quasi-intellectual…like his mother. More Yin than Yang. Nothing wrong with that. He’s a vessel that fills up and assumes the shape of the energy around him. He’s open and receptive. He could aspire to bigger things. His name could be in lights. Bierlein Construction…nah – Bierlein Entertainment.
YES.
Bierlein Entertainment has worked hard in the last few years to make their dream come true. Street Boss got the red carpet treatment in a full house premier at the historic Temple Theater on May 29th, 2009. This was quite an accomplishment for a small independent and locally owned company.
I like the Mission Statement, a pretty good goal - but… ah … Street Boss. Hmm. Nope. I’m sure the old man’s been around the piss pot a few times looking for the handle. But he didn’t get close this time.
Hollywood came to Saginaw…and left rather abruptly. Hell, everyone has a price even the B-movie actors and TV hacks like Bob Gallo and Nick Turturro. Its easy money, just waltz through the role like somnambulant extra in Night of the Living Dead; Read one cliché after another and let the incidental score take care of the rest. These actor-dudes are professional enough to realize that no one is going to see this stinker. Just collect the pay check (direct deposit only) and cash-in your percentage when the film folds in Saginaw and it goes straight to the rack jobbers - $5.99 @ Target, baby. No doubt it will sell a few hundred copies locally.
But please… let me tell you, just between you and me. I don’t want you tell anyone, not a darn soul, even your best and dearest friends and definitely not the Saginaw community at large that I’m grousing about this groundbreaking gawd-awful movie and especially don’t tell the Bierleins. They might be hurt. I don’t want them to know that I believe Street Boss may be the worst movie ever made. It’s not an “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of crappy movie like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Monster A Go-Go. No - this movie doesn’t possess any of that B-Movie cool and comedy of errors that ardent fans count on. Street Boss is too self-centered and self conscious to even consider how contrived it really is. And yet it’s based on a true story, one chapter from a book written (quite well) by former FBI agent Phil Kerby entitled With Honor and Purpose. Go figure.
Some of the characters are familiar like Tony Jack even though he was a Detroit mobster. Identifying the Saginaw mobsters is a bit more elusive. Names have been changed to protect the innocent or to avoid litigation and it appears that some of the characters are an amalgam of several different real-life people that were prominently featured in Chapter 11 – the best chapter in the entire book – if you are a name dropper from Saginaw.
Scriptwriters Bierlien and Kawas followed chapter 11 very closely, ripping exact quotes from the book. The dialogue is awkward at best and even the title is utilized as a dramatic contrivance. In other words the chapter didn’t translate very well onto the big screen. The incidental music didn’t help, much of the soundtrack was trite and predictable - build the tension with the brush of a minor chord and play the violin when the Bierlein/Kerby character looks longingly at the Dambro daughter/love interest character through the lens of a doomed love that can never be. In fact, near the very end of movie, the two doomed lover-wannabees are leaving the court room in slow motion…they stop, she gazes longingly back at him; he gazes back at her - their eyes meet. The camera scans the girl then flashes back to Bierlein - not once but three straight times! GEEEEZ - OK, all right already- I GET IT. These two lovers will never be together. He’s a FBI agent, a good one who kicks butt and takes names in honor and allegiance to J.Edgar and what he knows to be good and true. He would never compromise his high moral standards in order to bump uglies with the Dambro girl, even though she’s hot and willing and just a little too young. Oh, what the hell. And we’ll never see it and he won’t admit it ‘cos it’s bad for business and might screw with his judgeship or other plumb movie roles.
Truth be told this movie screwed everyone involved – especially the audience - and if as many was sticking out as was stuck in - Street Boss would be a movie about porcupines.
The theme of unrequited love permeates the secondary plotlines and serves as an apt metaphor for this PU stinker of a movie. I want to love you but I just can’t.
The stilted and unfunny episodes of humor felt forced and sophomoric . The extras appeared unrehearsed, stiff and unconvincing. There were several scenes that occurred in restaurants (because, I’m told, that’s where mobsters go to relax) where the waitresses did NOT come up to you right at the moment you shoveled in a mouthful of some sorta dead chicken topped with loads of cheese, bacon and a sweet sauce of unknown origin and asks “Is everything tasting good?” To which you reply (weakly), “ro-ray” as a stream sweet gooey mush drips from your twisted half-smile. You know THAT ain’t real.
There’s a bar scene in which a buxom blond is bellied up and looking fine. She’s smoking…but she’s not smoking all cool and demure. She’s hitting it like a blunt, a deep inhalation, holding to the count of 5 and exhaling more smoke than the old Gray Iron Foundry. Whew…and you know THAT ain’t…hmm.
Many in the audience loved the movie, even though almost every scene was filled with cliched and hackneyed devices… like when they borrowed from the 40 year-old virgin (funnily massive chest hair) and 48 hours (inept cop partnering and gratuitous violence) without being…well, funny. The entire row of people sitting right behind me thought otherwise and laughed loudly throughout the “funny” bits. The most boisterous one of the crew let it slip out that several in their group had been extras in this scene or that scene. In fact I heard several such exclamations as I strolled into the movie and at the end when I ran out of the theater – at least 3/4 of the audience were extras in the film. Had to be. But there seemed to be a menacing undercurrent to the excited talk and jovial mood - feel the love… or else. At least that’s how I experienced it. I felt that I SHOULD laugh. But compulsory enjoyment is pretty stressful. And though it was quite painful, I laughed along with the audience. As I looked around with a furrowed brow and a weak smile I saw them looking back at me and the look was ominous - “you better laugh”. I didn’t really mind. As I laughed my uptightness gave way to this strange and wonderful sense of acceptance…that I paid five bucks to watch this doomed juggernaut and spent even more for a bag of stale popcorn and a diet coke. And I could still smile.
I found meaning in my suffering
For a drama it was bad comedy. It wasn’t nearly dark enough to helps confront a personal truth nor did it lay out a moral imperative we could sink out teeth into and compare ourselves against so that we could feel like crap for the rest of the night and most of the next morning at least until we had a good breakfast with eggs and sausage and a tall cool glass of prune juice. The defining moment in the film questions the need for, the very existence of Street Boss. Bierlein is poised, his shoulders are back and he’s walking stiff like he had a pool stick shoved up his rear-end.
Epilogue. Street Boss won a coveted yet obscure award from the Detroit-Windsor International Film Festival. An award that is similar to buying a lottery ticket or slugging a slot machine …you gotta pay up to win the prize. Its ok by me and it isn’t nearly as sleazy as our government peppering a bailout package for the architects of our economic collapse as they gather round the rotting corpses of the fallen and relish yet another chance to counterfeit wealth.
Street Boss is more earnest and honorable than any of those hissing Big Budget Filmmaking hyenas who create glossy yet spurious entertainment such as Love Happens, Miss Congeniality or anything by Keanu Reeves. And though as a work of art, Street Boss ranks up there with the discarded outtakes of Earth Girls are Easy, it still deserves more respect than the next Beyonce video.
Peace
P.S.…
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Bierlein’s modest unadorned Mission Statement is testimony to a strong work ethic earned from years of hard work and dedication to the family’s successful construction business:
“To build a brand name that will be associated with quality films, that entertain audiences around the world, while maintaining a happy and professional work environment for all involved.”
Oh damn the torpedoes…me horney.
It’s me not you.
It is the perfect metaphor for Street Boss.
Bo White