Review of God's Pocket (2014) by Richard B — 12 Dec 2014

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie! The dark humor comes through with excellent performances from a stellar cast- particularly Hoffman, Jenkins, Turturro and Marsan. I am a long time Pete Dexter fan and a former resident of South Philly, and I think Slattery did an excellent job of capturing the bleak black humor of the neighborhood.

Reading reviews this morning, I notice how the English papers got the black humor and liked the movie a lot where the American reviews tried to shoehorn this unique picture into one of their traditional and stiffling movie categories (many American reviews even got important details wrong- God's Pocket is a neighborhood not a "small town in Pennsylvania," Hendrick's character does have a name (one review called her character unnamed- we hear the name Jeanie so much it becomes a leitmotif), Hoffman's character is named "Hubbard" Variety- get your names right if you want to pan a film).

if there is any comparison I would make it would be Elmore Leonard goes slumming - there is the same kind of humor in the characters with dexter and Slattery's distinctively different perspective.

Highly recommended for people who don't like pigeonhole films and like to think for themselves.