User Reviews

This contains spoilers! Went to the premiere of this a couple weeks ago to support a friend who worked on the film and asked my girlfriend and I to come keep him company. He told us it was bad before we went so we didn't have high expectations and we read all the reviews from the LA Times and others that ripped this film to shreds but they were being polite. Just to clarify this was just a paycheck job for my buddy and he encouraged us to write our thoughts and give the filmmaker a reality check.

So this guy Shurchin says this film is based on his own life which is hard to believe because it is so melodramatic and ridiculous it appears more delusional than heart breaking. It follows the story of a 9 year old boy that leaves Russia with his parents to New York because of their fear against Jews regardless of the fact there's millions of Russian Jews. Harry Hamlin plays the father and the only person that shows a glimmer of talent but definitely one of his worst performances simply because the material is not the greatest. I like that guy though, he's a good dude. Met him and his wife at the premiere. After arriving in New York his character Deema is embarrassed he needs to have another job than what he did in Russia and that is apparently enough to be an alcoholic, dwell in self pity, and take his own life.

Meanwhile his mother Meela played by Angela Gots could make your eyes and ears bleed. This hideous and haggard looking woman yells too often. She was definitely the worst actor in the entire film. When I say worst I mean if it wasn't annoying it would be funny. A few of her scenes I did laugh but it was tempered by blood boiling in my ear drums. While none of her scenes were good some needed many many more takes. Even for the melodramatic this was unconvincing, uncontrolled, and caricature cartoonish. She then shacks up with the abusive Tolik played by Andrew Divoff. There is one ridiculous scene between her, Tolik, and the kid Daanyik that may be worth a look even just for a laugh. She too was at the premiere but unlike Hamlin and his wife she was very standoffish, rude, presents herself snobby as if she is better than everyone else. Only sucking up to a few. I kept my distance what was I going to say? Hi, nice to meet you, you were the worst actor in the film? I told my girlfriend she seems really childish but has an old wrinkly face and she says that's probably why her dress is from high school lmao ladies please! Samuel Dixon plays Daanyik, doing a pretty good job for this script. My main issue with this kid is his character is an angry little man with not a lot of that endearing kid spark that despite his problems would exist and make the audience on his side more instead it all gets lost in this grim, messy tale of self pity.

Daanyik also runs into bullies and a molesting rabbi. If you are wondering if there is a single nice character in this film it would be Paul Sorvino but don't expect a lot of uplifting moments. Expect a lot of drawn out, boring, pointless scenes, then jumping confusing scenes, and a lot of black and white footage from post World War II New York City on a constant basis trying to convince us this is some serious, dramatic, life changing exposure of the real immigrant life experience. Which I found very weird and distracting and for a film that is not that long to begin with in actual time not the time you feel like you are sitting there it seems like a lot of filler to take up time and make it look like a more serious true film or maybe to make up time they couldn't afford to film as this is obviously an extremely low budget film.

I don't want to knock the guy if this was really what happened to him and not an exaggeration hopefully this was therapeutic for him but this is not a well constructed, written, or executed film. Filmmaker to filmmaker, this needed much more work and time before it even went to film it looks like and a lot more during filming and post. That's my opinion of course.

Warning: Contains Spoilers!

I bought this film because I'm a big fan of Paul Sorvino and Andrew Divoff who are both in this movie and their performances didn't disappoint me, but neither did the story line. No, this movie wasn't perfect, like most others I too was annoyed at the arbitrary historical footage in between the scenes but for me that didn't take away from the story.

It's a heartbreaking tale of poverty, shattered dreams, domestic violence and child abuse that needs to be told. No matter how many films we make about this, it's something very real and devastating that is unfortunately too common. This movie really hit home for me because I saw so many traces of my own childhood in there; growing up in a single-parent household in a foreign place with bad guys who came and went. Much like Daanyik's, my cries fell on deaf ears too.

The ending of the movie is really what got me on the edge of my seat. I was literally clawing at my living room chair when Tolik (played by Andrew Divoff) was at Meela's (played by Angela Gots) door threatening to kill both her and little Daanyik and she actually opened it! I swore he was going to kill both of them but in a twist that I really wasn't expecting, it's little Daanyik who ends up stabbing Tolik to death. It was an emotionally intense ending to an emotionally intense film, especially for someone who lived through something similar (minus the murder).

I do hope that future viewers will stop being childish as to the production of this film (who also happened to be based on a true story of the writer's life) and actually look to the story told here and take an important lesson from it.