The directorial debut of John Turturro, who also handles the title role, is a memorial to his father (1925-1988), a first-generation Italian immigrant, carpenter, and then independent contractor in Queens, N.Y., in the mid-1950s. Under the circumstances, it's a marvel of objectivity, or maybe not quite such a marvel of mixed emotions, or still less of a marvel of lack of leading-man magnetism and egotism, that the protagonist is neither idealized nor even mildly complimented. The feeling for the work itself and the construction sites is strong and engaging: the textures of wet concrete and mud, the blocky piles of lumber, the compartmented box of nails, the skeletal house frame. And there's a beautiful and uninterrupted demonstration of the bricklayer's craft. It is hard to know now whether this kind of thing would have been enough on its own to sustain interest over feature-length; hard to know how little outside interest would have had to have been called in for support. It's a cinch, though, that the present doses of cooked-up and overheated (yet strangely flavorless) theatrics detract more than they enhance. Like a lot of actors-turned-director, Turturro trusts too much in histrionic intensity to carry a movie along. Katherine Borowitz, Michael Badalucco, Carl Capotorto, Ellen Barkin. (1993) — Duncan Shepherd
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