Hoffa

Written by David Mamet, and starring Nicholson as the legendary union boss who disappeared one summer's evening in 1975, DeVito's film disappoints, though there are always compensations. Nicholson's Hoffa and his all-purpose sidekick/co-conspirator Bobby Ciaro (De Vito) move all the way from hard-nosed pre-war trucking, through union organisation, struggle and arson, into the full-scale corruption and racketeering that were to lead Hoffa into the arms of attorney general Robert Kennedy (Anderson), to jail, and finally to an anonymous grave - courtesy, in all probability, of his erstwhile Mafia cohorts. DeVito's scale is grand, but the language is foul and the sets sometimes look tacky, while the score is unspeakable. Nicholson's performance dominates, but fails finally to hold the film together. Still, in the courtroom confrontations with Anderson's boyish Bobby, and in the flashforward scenes with an aged DeVito, waiting for that last, late rendezvous in a freeway cafeteria, there is much to admire. Ambiguous, but probably not sufficiently so: yooze catch ma drift?