AMERICAN DRESSER (2018) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Carmine Cangialosi
Tom Berenger, Keith David, Carmine Cangialosi,
Penelope Ann Miller, Bruce Dern, Gina Gershon
Jeff Fahey, Becky O'Donohue, Scott Shilstone
For a lot of us, Tom Berenger will always be Sam Webber, the hotshot television action star in "The Big Chill" (1983). There's something faintly sardonic about Berenger's performance in that film, an intelligent guy who accepts the fact that he's selling out because he likes the payoff and knows he can't really help himself. So here's Berenger 35 years later, older and wearier, but still with that playful, knowing edge. He's playing a Vietnam vet living on Long Island, drinking too much and grieving over the death of his wife. A letter he finds in the sleeve of an old vinyl album induces him to take off on a cross-country journey by motorcycle, bound for the Pacific Northwest. Along for the ride are an old Army buddy (Keith David), and eventually a young drifter (Carmine Cangialosi) they meet along the way. There are diversions in the form of Penelope Ann Miller as a woman who connects with Berenger and gets a ride on his bike, and Bruce Dern as an old coot who needs help with a flat tire. It's a pleasantly laid-back road movie up to the last reel or two, when it kind of skids onto the gravel. And there's Berenger, who won't attempt a stuntman's leap into a Porsche convertible ever again (see "The Big Chill"), but retains the trace of a twinkle in his eye.
