For those of you who yearn for the void of the night, transfixed by the neon lights’ reflection off the pavements’ wet face, prowling the darkness; Mikey and Nicky may be for you.
Aesthetically, Elaine May’s craft in her slept-on 1976 feature shares the same reflections of the dirty 1970s urbanscapes as Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973) or Walter Hill’s iconic cult classic The Warriors (1979). Bringing you on the anxious journey of one single night in the murky Philadelphia underbelly, Nicky is a man marked for death by the local mob. Mikey is the last person in his life he can place his trust in. The night unfolds in claustrophobic tension, powered by the wired performances of the legendary Peter Falk and John Cassavettes. There are few cuts in this film (and more continuity errors than you can damn count), and that lets the brilliance of these two artists and real-life friends to ride out on screen without interrupting the incredible flow of their chemistry.
Again with Mean Streets, both of these movies are interesting in its lack of flash in the mob/crime genre. (Honestly, by their nature these two movies reject any specific classification.) Both follow the life and times of 2-bit hustlers still on the bottom rung of the gangster hierarchy. Rather than be intoxicated with the rich spoils of that life, there’s a sobering realism to the stripped down portrayal of a mafioso bum. But beyond the criminal element, Mikey and Nicky is a film about toxic friendship. A look into how far the bonds of brotherhood can be warped and manipulated before one must exercise their own demons.
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