The pianist/loan shark collector at the center of writer-director James Toback's "Fingers" is a quirky, volatile character, one with a defensive edge and a hair-trigger temper. Yet, by the end of the film, he's in far worse shape than he was at the beginning, making him not so much a crestfallen anti-hero as simply a bad example. Harvey Keitel is marvelous in the lead--tense and coiled, yet magnetic--and he's allowed room by the director to give his character some boyish shading (when he's playing his beloved vintage pop tunes on his cassette recorder in public). But the character has no life outside of his duties for his father, his attraction to a teasing sculptress and his dark, personal world of music. He has no friends, he fights with everyone he comes into contact with, he argues with his doctor doing a prostate exam and his virtuosity at the piano does not pay him back in kind. Some see this, Toback's directorial debut, as a portrait of a character in hell, but by not writing a full, rounded life for this man, it's a movie traveling a dead-end street. It seems extremely lazy and monotonous from a narrative standpoint, although the picture (filmed in wintry New York City, with its brown buildings and bare tress) certainly looks good. Personal taste will have to decide its ultimate impact. ** from ****
Review of Fingers
