|
|
CLOVER
Director: Jon Abrahams Cast: Jon Abrahams, Mark Webber, Nicole Elizabeth Berger, Chazz Palminteri, Erika Christensen, Julia Jones, Jessica Szohr, Jake Webber, Tichina Arnold, Louis Lombardi, Val Lauren, Michael Godere, Ron Perlman MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:41 Release Date: 4/3/20 (digital & on-demand) |
|
Review by Mark Dujsik | April 2, 2020 Two brothers, indebted to a crime boss who wants them dead, go on the run in order to survive in Clover. Screenwriter Michael Testone's plotting is pretty tight, and the story is filled with some eccentric characters to keep the familiar plot from becoming too routine. The main issue, though, is that director Jon Abrahams never decides upon the movie's tone. It's a thriller, yes, with plenty of betrayals and close calls, but it's also clear that Testone has a more comedic touch in mind, given the constant bantering between characters and some quirky character details. Despite some performances that understand the funnier side of the material, Abrahams overshadows the comedy with a style and an attitude that are too cool for that sort of silliness. The basics of the rather busy plot have brothers Mickey (Abrahams) and Jackie (Mark Webber), who run a bar, owing money to Tony (Chazz Palminteri), the head of a New York City crime family. He gives the two a chance to pay off their debt by accompanying his son on a "house call" to another debtor. By the end of the visit, the son is dead, shot by the man's now-orphaned teenage daughter Clover (Nicole Elizabeth Berger). The brothers, with the girl tagging along, have to evade Tony's goons and a pair of assassins (played by Erika Christensen and Julia Jones), looking to buy a pizza oven to burn bodies (and, of course, make pizza), the crime lord has hired to kill them. It's a near-constant chase, with punctuations of violence and lulls of the brothers, as well as the people they reach out to for help (including fellow bar owner Pat, played by Tichina Arnold, and Jackie's ex-girlfriend Angie, played by Jessica Szohr), bickering about how they got into this mess and their personal differences. The plot itself winds and weaves enough that the movie is never dull, and Abrahams shows a keen eye for staging the assorted standoffs and shootouts that inevitably follow. We get the sense, though, that Clover is missing prime opportunities for humor. It's there in Testone's screenplay (When Terry—a conspiracy theorist played Jake Weber—arrives, the notion that this is supposed to be a comedy is cemented), but Abrahams either leans more toward a self-serious tone or incorrectly assumes the comedy will come through without any help. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
Buy Related Products
|
