David Mamet's gift for dialogue and high-minded drama takes a backseat in the unsuccessful screwball comedy, "State and Main". You've seen flashes of this film in Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" and Robert Altman's "The Player" but Mamet's latest effort is no more than an exercise in tedium. He neither has the storyline nor the players (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Rebecca Pidgeon wouldn't make you think of Jimmy Stewart and Katherine Hepburn) to pull off this ungracious effort. Ostensibly about the invasion of bad-mannered Hollywood into a proper New England town, the film manages to throw so many subplots at you that even an earnest viewer would lose out. That we are suppose to excuse the commission of sex with a minor or the past arson hijinks of one of the main characters and yet be so concerned about telling the truth seems incredulous. If Mamet had stayed focused on the hard-boiled director (Walt Price, adequately played by William Macy) trying to keep his production on schedule and within budget, there might have been a chance. But he veers off with the prolonged romance between Joe and Ann (Hoffman and Pidgeon), or the asinine fight over the starlet who won't go topless, or the pompous efforts of the mayor's wife to host an ill-fated dinner, or the preoccupation of star Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin) with an underage girl. The appearance of producer Marty (David Paymer) seemed to bring back the original focus but even he got lost in the final quarter of the film when the desperate Mamet had to try to tie all the loose ends. There are glimpses of praise, as when the innocent Joe White has to fest up to Ann upon seeing him with the naked Claire (played over the top by Sarah Jane Parker) and the repeated gag lines about the associate producer title, the two old codgers leafing through Variety, the pothole on Main Street that never gets fixed, and matzo mistakenly called crackers. The performances are run of the mill although David Paymer deserves recognition. From the high-minded David Mamet, "State and Main" is a major disappointment, where characterizations enamored him so much he lost sight of what he was trying to say.
Review of State and Main
