USA,
1992, 100 min
Shown in 1992
CREDITS
- dir
-
Nick Gomez
- scr
-
Nick Gomez
- cam
-
Jean de Segonzac
- editor
-
Tom McArdle
- cast
-
Peter Greene, Adam Trese, Edie Falco, Arabella Field, Paul Schulze
- source
-
Islet, Inc.
OTHER
In Nick Gomez's gutsy debut feature, Laws of Gravity, a rough corner of Brooklyn is home to Jimmy (Peter Greene) and Jon (Adam Trese), a couple of small-time crooks who spend their days concocting puny schemes—nickel-and-dime stuff in a low-rent world. When Frankie (Paul Schulze), a rather odious thug, returns to the neighborhood, the local scene sours. Frankie is bad news, a vicious guy with a suitcase filled with guns. And so Laws of Gravity accelerates according to Sam Fuller’s fatalistic plot device, “Introduce a gun and someone has to fire it.” Gomez’s almost predatory film is as restless as the guys on the block. The nervy, intense hand-held camera stalks the film’s characters as they range the blacktop of Brooklyn. This agitation energizes the remarkable gang of actors—including Jimmy’s simmering mate Denise (Edie Falco)—who seem born and bred in the borough with their streetwise swaggers and tough-minded humor. As loyalties strain to the breaking point, the sober and wiser Jimmy tries to calm his more volatile cohort, Jon. But it's Jimmy's failing that he, too, can’t see beyond his own hard luck. The turf in Laws of Gravity has its own rules, its implacable meanness. In that sorry piece of Brooklyn, the laws of nature always win out.
—Steve Seid
FACTOID #107
Incubus, the only known film made in the Esperanto language (at least the only one starring William Shatner), played the 1966 San Francisco International Film Festival.
