Muddled and meandering, every plot element of this film is incompetently handled, even though the acting throughout is exemplary, and Keitel is near his very best. Having said that, he performs perhaps the most unconvincing attempt at miming to a piano that has ever been recorded on film. Multiple times.
There's no real story here: every part of the puzzle that is introduced - the woman he falls for, his love of 50's pop music, his dream of being a classical pianist, the pimp, the prostate exam, his father's heart condition - none of it is explored in any detail and none of it leads to anything at all; all these meaningless threads just turn to mist and disappear into the air. You could remove every one of the above and replace them with other details and it wouldn't change the outcome of the film one bit. So what was the point? Why were they put there in the first place? Why did this story have to be told? What was it trying to say?
The ending is dour and bleak and very much of its time: though some will try to make the case "Fingers" deserves to be spoken of with the same reverence as, say, Scorsese's Taxi Driver, there's really no reason at all to think so. It's just another one of those endlessly grimy, depressed and paranoid non-thrillers of the seventies, that didn't need to be made, and didn't aim for or achieve anything worth remembering.
There's no real story here: every part of the puzzle that is introduced - the woman he falls for, his love of 50's pop music, his dream of being a classical pianist, the pimp, the prostate exam, his father's heart condition - none of it is explored in any detail and none of it leads to anything at all; all these meaningless threads just turn to mist and disappear into the air. You could remove every one of the above and replace them with other details and it wouldn't change the outcome of the film one bit. So what was the point? Why were they put there in the first place? Why did this story have to be told? What was it trying to say?
The ending is dour and bleak and very much of its time: though some will try to make the case "Fingers" deserves to be spoken of with the same reverence as, say, Scorsese's Taxi Driver, there's really no reason at all to think so. It's just another one of those endlessly grimy, depressed and paranoid non-thrillers of the seventies, that didn't need to be made, and didn't aim for or achieve anything worth remembering.