Rating: 

The Info

Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Written by: Steven Antin
Starring: Sharon Stone, Jean-Luke Figueroa, Jeremy Northam, Cathy Moriarty, George C. Scott
Produced by: Gary Foster, Lee Rich

The Nutshell

Gloria has to hide a young boy from the mob, who have killed his family.

The Review

    Gloria is a remake of the John Cassevettes film of the same name, which had Gena Rowlands as the title character. While by no means a classic, it is an intelligently written film. 1999's Gloria unfortunately, is a pale comparison.

    Sharon Stone stars this time as Gloria, the mistress of a New York mob guy who has just been released from a Miami prison. She has spent three years in jail covering for her lover, Kevin (Northam), on the assumption that when she got out, she was going to be handed over a rather large bank account full of money. This, of course, is one deal that the mob does refuse, and Gloria is stuck in New York with no money or a place to stay.

    Gloria discovers a young buy, Nicky (Figueroa), who is being held by the mob. Nicky's father was a mob accountant, and he made a disk that held enough information to bring down the entire mob. The mob found out, of course, and Nicky's entire family was killed, except for him. Nicky is being kept alive until the mob can find out if there was a second copy of the disk made.

    Gloria manages to swipe Nicky and the disk out from under the mob's nose, partly to get even with Kevin, partly because it is the right thing to do. What follows is a formulaic, boring chase film with the mob trying to find Gloria and Nicky, as they move from hiding place to hiding place. Gloria and Nicky bicker and argue all of the time, and when they eventually form a bond, it comes as no surprise to anyone.

    There really isn't anything good or positive to say about Gloria. It is simply boring. There are essentially two main kinds of mob films: serious and non-serious. Serious mob films include The Godfather trilogy and Goodfellas, while Mafia! and Analyze This are perfect examples of non-serious mob films. Gloria's problem is that it sits uncomfortably in between the two genres. The group of assorted mob minions who continually search for Gloria are neither mean nor funny, they are just bland. George C. Scott, as Ruby, a mob guy higher up on the chain then Kevin and his crew, seems like more of a cuddly grandfather than a mob boss. Even the bickering between Gloria and Nicky is amateurly written. A much better example of this type of film relationship can be found in the delightful Central Station.

    There is the occasional car chase, yet even here, the drivers never seem to be interested in the fact that they are in a car chase! They idly swerve through perfectly evenly spaced cars as if they were out for a sightseeing drive, and not running for their lives. The few attempts at humour mostly fall flat due to an uninspired effort on the part of Sharon Stone. Stone is mostly responsible for carrying the film, and her performance needed to be a winner for Gloria to succeed. Too bad that she chose to concentrate more on getting her New York accent right and not enough on injecting some emotion. As Nicky, newcomer Figueroa is only adequate. He isn't able to properly emote the feelings that his character should be feeling at the loss of his entire family, the way that Victoire Thivisol could in the awesome Ponette.

    When you wrap so many middle-of-the-road, average, bland aspects into a film, the end product cannot be anything but boring. Such is the case here in a remake that will probably quickly be forgotten, and deservedly so.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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