The Last Rites of Joe May

Veteran character actor Dennis Farina takes center stage in the titular role of writer-director Joe Maggio's The Last Rites of Joe May, a mix of gangland melodrama and soap opera. Farina is riveting as May, an aging low-level hustler who emerges from a hospital stay to find his car impounded, belongings trashed, and apartment leased to new tenants—single mother Jenny Rapp (Jamie Anne Allman), and her daughter, Angelina (Meredith Droeger). Unfortunately, the script takes an all too predictable path: dumped by his old pals, Joe takes refuge with Jenny, doing his best to protect her from an abusive cop boyfriend and reluctantly bonding with Angelina. Farina suffers extravagantly in the lead without sacrificing May's wounded dignity, especially when he pulls off an extended seriocomic sequence in which May tries vainly to sell a hunk of frozen meat that he's been given on consignment by a cruel mob boss. But even Farina can't make the down-on-his-luck May's interest in rebuilding a rooftop pigeon coop into anything more than a genre cliché, and the big finish will not come as much of a surprise. Optional. (F. Swietek)