Search - The Big Town on DVD

When things get hot, people get burned ... bet on it!

Peter Shelley | Sydney, New South Wales Australia | 08/18/2001

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Based on the novel The Big Arm by Clark Howard with a screenplay by Robert Roy Pool, this drama directed by Ben Bolt feels like an adaptation of a large canvas novel with all the detail left in, so that everything reads as subsidiary. Set in the Chicago of the 1950's, Matt Dillon stars as a dice player from Indiana seeking the big time. However, when you're juggling at least 4 plots it's only natural that not all of them will come together for a satisfying conclusion. The most promising one concerns Dillon's Hustler-like competition with Tommy Lee Jones as the owner of a strip club, with Jones having the same spot between the eyebrows as Dillon. The problem with filming dice is that the actual game is monotonous, so the best Bolt could do is create tension by delaying the next roll or the raising of financial stakes, though he does provide an early montage of Dillon with David Marshall Grant on a winning spree and falling dice and money to the sounds of Shake, Rattle and Roll on the soundtrack. The only other visual trick is the sparks of an overhead train on it's tracks as Dillon and Diane Lane as Jones' stripper wife kiss to Fever. The best of the screenplay is a laugh line of sarcasm and forboding given to Meg Hogarth as Dillon's mother re his dice mentor's funeral "I nearly got crushed in the crowd", and Cherry Jones as a Patsy Cline-like singer who sneaks up behind Dillon, covering his eyes with a guess who? Dillon says her perfume gives her away and she replies " Aint nobody gonna give me away but my daddy". This use of eyes and the eyes of the dice are also parallel with Bruce Dern as the husband of Lee Grant, Dillon's employer. Dern is a former dice champ who has been blinded, but unfortunately this plot point gets no payoff. Dillon is also given two romantic partners in Lane and Suzy Amis as a mother of a child out of wedlock. The madonna/whore dichotomy is rather obvious, and the symbolism worse, with Amis' child scoring points for her and the way Lane is presented so unflatteringly scores points against her. Lane's fan dance doesn't help, since the focus on the scen is more Dillon's twisted attraction/repulsion. The 1950's period works for Dillon's razor etched beauty, the perfect locale for his photographer Bruce Weber appeal, and he even gives a Method touch to the way he hits his own face with a restaurant menu. Watch for Lolita Davidovich as another of Jones' strip club entertainers."