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One of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last films, God’s Pocket has him portraying a low-life with a beautiful wife and how he deals with the fallout after his delinquent son is killed after racially abusing a work colleague in the construction industry.
The title refers to a sarcastic nickname given to a town in South Philadelphia, which in real life is called Devil’s Pocket. The narrator who happens to be the journalist character Richard Shelburn (played by Richard Jenkins) describes the inhabitants as thieves and brigands, and the film doesn’t hold back in revealing them as so.
Parallells abound with Maps to the Stars in that you’ll be hard-pressed to find a character you can root for. Where Julie-Anne Moore’s Havana Seagrand and John Cusack’s Stafford Weiss were repulsive characters, John Tururro’s Arthur Capezio and Hoffman’s Mickey Scarpato are detestable idiots that steal defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s a bit like Inspector Gadget without the happy ending, the whole town pre-ordained to fuck up the lives of themselves and everyone else around them.
It doesn’t help that the central plot of how Hoffman’s boy, Leon (Caleb Landy Jones) is so repugnant and annoying that you don’t care that his death is covered up to be an accident by his employer. All potential for any dramatic tension is destroyed.
The performances are not as strong as David Cronenberg’s act of nihilism. Turturro does his best Al Pacino impression, the beautiful Christina Hendricks is largely mute. I don’t think the script helps. The dialogue feels very clunky. An example is where journalist Shelburn is using a dictaphone in his car at a red light. A car pulls up next to him and the driver mockingly watches him talk to himself for a few seconds. He then shouts out an incredibly lame putdown and drives off. It’s like writer-director John Slattery (Mad Men actor) thinks all working-class people are boring and inarticulate and has written the dialogue to reflect that. He needs to watch some Mike Leigh movies.
Some startling scenes of violence break the tedium buffoonery but are not enough to save the film from being bleakly mediocre. Not the best film to remember Hoffman by. A Most Wanted Man was a much better send-off. Not even an appearance from The Wire’s Domenick Lobardozzi (Detective Herc) can save this. This Pocket of God has a vibe of Killing Them Softly but not as good.
The additions (they are not worthy of the term special features) on the Blu-ray reflect the quality of the film – a trailer that hints at the boredom that would ensue from watching this and deleted scenes that you wouldn’t bother watching if you’d endured the motion picture itself. Best waiting for a bargain bin sale if you are a Hoffman, Turturro or Hendricks fan.