L.I.E. Review
by Dennis Schwartz (ozus AT sover DOT net)June 5th, 2002
L.I.E. (director/writer: Michael Cuesta; screenwriters: Stephen M. Ryder/Gerald Cuesta; cinematographer: Romeo Tirone; editors: Eric Carlson/;
music: Pierre Földes; cast: Brian Cox (Big John Harrigan), Paul Franklin Dano (Howie Blitzer), Billy Kay (Gary Terrio), Bruce Altman (Marty
Blitzer), James Costa (Kevin Cole), Tony Michael Donnelly (Brian), Adam LeFevre (Marty's lawyer), Walter Masterson (Scott), Marcia DeBonis
(Guidance counselor); Runtime: 97; New Yorker Films; 2001)
"Other than being an entertaining film, there were no breakthroughs or big thoughts coming out of it."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Michael Cuesta's L.I.E. -- Long Island Expressway -- feels like other indie troubled suburban teen films I have recently seen, except its entertainment value comes about from a story that is disjointed and ludicrous. In its bleak moments it reminds me most of Trans and the inner angst both troubled youths shared. But here there is not only a coming-of-age story, a looking for poppa to act like one, but the pretty virgin blond hero is confronted by a smooth middle-aged predator, Big John Harrigan (Brian Cox-played Hannibal Lecter in "Manhunter"), offering him homosexual love and a chance to be added to the collection of boys he successfully lured.
The 15-year-old protagonist trying to discover who he is, is Howie Blitzer (Dano). In a voiceover to open the film, he mentions how he misses his mother who recently died in a car crash on the L.I. E.. His shady building construction owner father is distant from him, more interested in being with his new lady friend, but plies him with material things. This leaves Howie, a bright boy who is interested in poetry, with no one around to give him guidance. In school the well-intentioned guidance counselor makes a futile effort to reach him, but she's too gooey for him. Again, as in most of the teen films I have seen, the institutions fail the ones they should be helping.
Howie muses while dangling on one foot from the overhead guard rail on the Long Island Expressway, that not only his mother died there but famous people such as singer-songwriter Harry Chapin and movie director Alan J. Pakula. He tells us the expressway "has taken a lot of people and I hope
it doesn't get me. There are lanes going east. lanes going west, and lanes going straight to hell." When he's not reciting poetry and skipping school, he's hanging out with three other troublesome youths who offer him their friendship if he goes along with their house robbery schemes. His best friend Gary (Billy Kay) is heavily tattooed and body pierced, and is streetwise and more crafty than Howie. He's a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, who hustles men to earn some bread. One of the men he's involved with is Big John, who is an ex-marine and a former government official overseas. He's respected in the community by both the police and the school system as a patriot and is secretly living with a young boy Scotty in his mansion-like house. Gary talks Howie into robbing his house while he's having a party upstairs and singing Irish songs, but things go wrong when Howie trips and Big John hearing the noise rushes downstairs to grab a piece of Howie's jeans before he escapes. Big John has a good time sniffing that part of the jeans since it came from the rear end.
Gary's plan is to escape his futile life on Long Island and runaway to Los Angeles. To do this he needs dough, and the two valuable guns from Big John's collection he just stole should do fine. But Big John sniffs out that it was Gary behind this robbery and when he confronts him, Gary drops a dime on Howie. Thusly, Howie sneaks into Gary's rundown cottage to steal back the guns to return to Big John. In the meantime Gary sneaks into Howie's house, as he noticed where Mr. Blitzer (Altman) hides his cash when visiting. He thereby steals that money and vanishes. Meanwhile Big John begins to seduce Howie and sadly becomes the only one who can connect with the disheartened kid. When Howie recites Walt Whitman to him
in his shiny orange Cutlass and he recognizes the poem, the man-boy bond and that eventually leads for a night in Big John's house. This comes at a time when Howie's dad is arrested by the FBI for a housing scandal and is sent immediately to federal prison. The kid thinks his dad abandoned him, even though his arrest is all over the TV and newspapers. The film had no clue at where it wanted to go with this risky material and settled for the easy moralistic way out, with a burst of violence on one of those expressway exits where young male prostitutes solicit male riders. It also left the kid untouched by Big John, just gently fondled. Big John becomes instead a surrogate father to the kid, which didn't seem believable but was fun to
watch.
The story itself seemed preposterous, as there were holes in it throughout. The metaphor of the L.I.E. seemed more heavy-handed than enlightening. But Paul Franklin Dano seemed real and Brian Cox made for a diverting pedophile. Other than being an entertaining film and one that had an
underlying rawness to it, there were no breakthroughs or big thoughts coming out of it.
REVIEWED ON 6/7/2002 GRADE: B
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
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