Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito are both fine actors, and Jimmy Hoffa surely led a life fascinating enough to have made a very interesting movie, but somehow even with strong leads and an interesting subject the end result just doesn't work.
Nicholson was all right as Hoffa - but no more than all right. He seemed to be forcing the role a bit in places. DeVito (who also directed, with mixed results I thought) was passable as Hoffa's right hand man Bobby Ciaro, but - to me at least - just didn't really suit the part very well.
The movie is constructed as a series of flashbacks. We find at the start that Hoffa and Ciaro are waiting outside a diner for - well, someone. It's never really defined who they're waiting for, but Hoffa gets progressively agitated as time progresses and this someone doesn't show up. Meanwhile, Ciaro reminisces about his past experiences with Hoffa - from their first meeting, through the years of union organizing, fights with the Kennedy administration, encounters with organized crime, imprisonment, etc. The flashbacks left me empty. They tended to raise important subjects, but then never really seemed to have specific conclusions. Overall, I thought the movie was poorly constructed and quite disappointing as a result.
In a biographical movie such as this one, one of two things should happen: either you should feel you know the title character by the time it's over, or you have the desire to get to know him. Neither happened for me in this. Jimmy Hoffa is a character I can just as soon do without.
2/10
Nicholson was all right as Hoffa - but no more than all right. He seemed to be forcing the role a bit in places. DeVito (who also directed, with mixed results I thought) was passable as Hoffa's right hand man Bobby Ciaro, but - to me at least - just didn't really suit the part very well.
The movie is constructed as a series of flashbacks. We find at the start that Hoffa and Ciaro are waiting outside a diner for - well, someone. It's never really defined who they're waiting for, but Hoffa gets progressively agitated as time progresses and this someone doesn't show up. Meanwhile, Ciaro reminisces about his past experiences with Hoffa - from their first meeting, through the years of union organizing, fights with the Kennedy administration, encounters with organized crime, imprisonment, etc. The flashbacks left me empty. They tended to raise important subjects, but then never really seemed to have specific conclusions. Overall, I thought the movie was poorly constructed and quite disappointing as a result.
In a biographical movie such as this one, one of two things should happen: either you should feel you know the title character by the time it's over, or you have the desire to get to know him. Neither happened for me in this. Jimmy Hoffa is a character I can just as soon do without.
2/10