DIRECTED BY: RAMON MENENDEZ/1993
KINO LORBER STREET DATE: JUNE 4, 2019
John Cusack (Say Anything, The Ice Harvest) stars as Joey Coyle, a desperate dock worker who can’t even get a job despite his brother being in charge of handing out the job assignments. When riding with his friend Kenny (Michael Rapaport), they come upon a bag of cash. Unbeknownst to Joey, it is really cash that belongs to the mob. Kenny wants nothing to do with the cash, seeing it as nothing but trouble. Joey, however, is desperate for some luck and sees this cash as his ticket out of his daily struggle.
While billed as a comedy, it is more of a dark comedy. The film is directed by Stand and Deliver’s Ramon Menendez and features the acting talents of Debi Mazar (Empire Records), Michael Madsen (The Hateful Eight), Benicio Del Toro (Sicario), James Gandolfini (TV’s The Sopranos), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Maury Chaykin (Unstrung Heroes), Fionnula Flanagan (The Others), and Frankie Faison (Hannibal).
The film is watchable solely due to Cusack’s efforts and the strength of the cast who largely are delivering glorified cameos with the exception of Cusack, Mazar, Madsen, and Del Toro. The film plays as more of a morality tale with the title teasing the economic principle made famous by Milton Friedman that “there is no such thing as a free lunch”…..everything has a cost, so therefore there is no such thing as “money for nothing”, unless you mean the classic Dire Strait’s song.
Kino Lorber brings this film to Blu-Ray, but offers very little in terms of bonus material. The only offering for this release is a theatrical trailer, and the option for English subtitles.
