The Guys Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)February 1st, 2003
THE GUYS
# stars based on 4 stars: 3
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten
Focus Features
Directed by: Jim Simpson
Written by: Anne Nelson, Jim Simpson, play by Anne Nelson Cast: Anthony LaPaglia, Sigourney Weaver
Screened at: Review, NYC, 1/39/03
Half of all Americans today had not been born at the time that President Kennedy was shot. The big question for them is not "Where were you when JFK was assassinated," but "Where were you when the Twin Towers were hit on 9/11?" I was walking my dog two miles away when the two planes hit the twin towers of the country's tallest edifice; my wife Tammy was working on the fifty-fifth floor, dashing down the stairs with her colleagues to join some of them in a somber walk home across the Brooklyn Bridge.
The most devastating attack by foreign agents on Americans at home wiped away the idea that the U.S. was ably protected, a moat between two vast bodies of water, leading to repercussions that has punctuated American policy in the Middle East and beyond. Jim Simpson looks into one part of the drama in "The Guys," eschewing sentimentality while effectively eulogizing the firefighters who gave their lives to aid their fellow New Yorkers during a single day in the life of the world's most exciting city.
From a screenplay by the director, co-written by Anne Nelson (who penned the off-off Broadway production that featured, in turn, heavy hitters like Billy Murray, Tim Robbins, Swoosie Kurtz, Susan Sarandon and Amy Irving), "The Guys" is an understated meditation on the unhappy event that altered the course of world history. On the screen, "The Guys" never strays from its theatrical roots, but while the production is theatrical rather than cinematic, the excellent acting by Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia and the sincerity of the picture, make this a heartfelt event that all New Yorkers and for that matter the rest of the film- going world--would profit from seeing.
The story takes place almost entirely within the brownstone of a journalist, Joan (Sigourney Weaver), who is astonished that anyone would want to use the services of the dying breed known as writers. She is approached by Nick (Anthony LaPaglia), the captain of a firehouse, deeply grieved at the loss of several men whom he obviously considers heroes. In this fictitious story based on real events, Nick asks the Joan to compose a series of eulogies which he would deliver, one at a time, at church services and perhaps at the funerals of the people who paid the ultimate price. Nick, whose tools have been ladders, wrenches, and water hoses, needs Joan to supply words, perhaps the most powerful implements of all, to do the right thing by the families of these heroic men.
Filmed in locations that include Manhattan's Upper West Side, a Harlem brownstone (where the interview takes place), a firehouse in Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Cadman's Memorial Church and the pews of a Fort Greene church, "The Guys" takes us from Joan's living room to the firehouse, where Joan at one point steps out to pay tribute to the (actual) men at a Greenwich Village hook and ladder company and to the inside of a church peopled by actual families of the departed.
The film, a heartbreaking experience that could bring tears to the soulful segment of its audience, is not without humor. Simpson shows us how in the course of a few hours, the firefighter and the writer have made a connection. Describing his talents as a dancer, Nick demonstrates from his seat the way a woman should hold her wrist when performing a tango. As the two touch hands, Joan's fantasy takes hold. The chairs are moved to the walls and the two stand up to take a tango break, whirling about the floor: working class meets intellectual in an almost surreal sample of choreography.
Joan regularly insists that Nick supply the small details that would make each deceased firefighter human rather than angelic, because "a whole world comes out of small details." Simpson puts us squarely into that world, while Weaver and LaPaglia who had performed in the play at New York's Flea Theater touch our hearts to give us just one example of the long process of healing that has followed post-9/11. In the words of Mary Fahl, "My heart was sad though sore with pride/ for brave lads all were they."
Rated PG. 84 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at
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