The Florentine (1999)

The early going was quite depressing, as we watched a bar owner, Whitey (Michael Madsen), struggling to keep his seedy neighborhood bar afloat in a sea of debt to the local Shylock. That mood continued through the center section as a hustler (Jim Belushi) works his swindle on a friend of Whitey's, played by Luke Perry, who shows us that he is more than just a pretty face. And the guy (Tom Sizemore) who ran out on Whitey's soon-to-be-married sister, played by Virginia Madsen, has returned to town with a heavy load of guilt for his past sins. The darkness drags on through the final wedding preparations, right up to the final ten minutes, when finally the sun breaks through the clouds and everything turns out hearts and flowers (metaphorically speaking)! As a character study, this gets a lot of the bits right, but as a story, it was hard to feel anything but sadness. There are several interesting side stories, and the interaction amongst the various characters played fairly genuine. The local color provided by the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania gave the film an authenticity that would be hard to duplicate anywhere else. Just be prepared to empty your account of pathos for this bunch of sad sacks.