Title: HOFFA

Date: 6/15/1995; Publication: Magill's Survey of Cinema;

Magill's Survey of Cinema

06-15-1995

HOFFA

Abstract:
The rise and fall of legendary union boss James R. Hoffa (Jack Nicholson) is told in flashback. On the day that Hoffa is presumably killed, the audience learns of his first efforts at organizing, his meeting and liaisons with the Mafia, his confrontations with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Kevin Anderson), and his time in prison.


Summary:
This biography of the controversial labor leader James R. Hoffa (Jack Nicholson) follows the life of this modern legend through four decades, from his rise to power and his struggles with the United States federal government to his prison term and supposed murder by union compatriots. HOFFA seems to be a careful documentary, but in reality it is more myth than fact. The film plays fast and loose with interpretations of what happened during Hoffa's career. In this version, Hoffa the corrupt union leader becomes Hoffa the working- class hero fighting for his fellow union members, and only incidentally receiving help from organized crime.

In fact, the real Jimmy Hoffa did make the working world better for his men. In the 1930's, truck drivers were paid to make a schedule, not to sleep. This demand meant grueling work and sometimes death. Wages were low, overtime was nonexistent, and firings were common. To his credit, Hoffa changed all that. His International Brotherhood of Teamsters brought higher wages, job security, benefits, and safer conditions--but all at a price.

HOFFA offers a world of thugs, struggle, and violence. This version of Hoffa presents a man who was a firebrand, who made speech after speech, who was faithful to his wife, and who was done in by his allies. Indeed, the first section of director Danny DeVito's dark look at the American business world consists almost entirely of Hoffa building his Teamsters Union through effective speech making.

To make a tighter narrative, many compromises were made. Indeed, characters were invented. For example, DeVito plays Hoffa's ever- present trusted ally, Bobby Ciaro. This composite character (with no reference in reality) represents Everyman, Hoffa's sounding board. The only person who played that role in Hoffa's life was his loyal wife. The script by playwright David Mamet also skips over illegal union activities and focuses on Hoffa's tough character and his considerable organizing skills. Mamet fashions clever dialogue that, at times, is rich and fascinating, but the script is not consistent enough to make an almost two-and-a-half-hour film either riveting or spellbinding. The real Hoffa was far more interesting. His wife, for example, played a major role as adviser and helpmate in his rise to power, but Mamet hardly involves Jo Hoffa in the story. Hoffa's ties to the Mafia were far more complex than the simple allusions hinted at in HOFFA. The result is not a faithful documentary about a major player in the rise and fall of unionism in the United States. Instead, the film is far closer to the traditional, biased 1930's Hollywood biography.

Yet, even as a simplistic biography, HOFFA suffers. For example, no psychological motivations are provided. In the second half of the film, Hoffa infrequently deals with the Mafia, but only in the cause of the "working man." The ever-vexing questions of corrupt ethics are simply never raised. It seems that the filmmakers all came to admire their character of "Jimmy Hoffa" too much. Perhaps more distance would have given the film several dimensions, instead of only one.

Mamet's script was ready in 1989. The head of Twentieth Century-Fox, Joe Roth, then hired Danny DeVito as actor and director. Both then focused on signing Jack Nicholson to become Hoffa. Nicholson quickly agreed, but the actual production did not begin for two years. Nicholson's prior commitments and DeVito's own busy schedule necessitated a lengthy delay. That gave DeVito, Nicholson, and Mamet endless time to revise the initial script. By 1991, they had fashioned a conventional structural recrafting of a classic gangster film. The central character works with religious fervor, ascending to the acme of power--here the presidency of the union. Yet the means of his rise are corrupt. The audience knows that the gangster must die at the end of the film, as dictated by the formula.

It is the rise to power that proves fascinating. In HOFFA, the dramatic climax of this rise comes with Hoffa's confrontation with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (Kevin Anderson) in public hearings. Hoffa calls Kennedy a "punk," while Kennedy promises that he will convict the labor leader. In time, Kennedy does send Hoffa to jail, and Hoffa is eventually pardoned by President Richard M. Nixon. Thereafter, however, Hoffa cannot hold office in the union, and he is betrayed by younger, more ambitious labor leaders. The ending of HOFFA is intriguing. Intercut with this classic rise-to-power tale are scenes of an aged Hoffa and Ciaro sitting at a roadside cafe waiting for unknown associates. With his boss waiting in a parked car, Bobby Ciaro chats with a young fellow (Frank Whaley), and the audience knows that their deaths are inevitable.

To its credit, HOFFA does convey convincingly the hard and dangerous world of truck driving of the 1930's. The film's production unit spent five weeks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the Teamster Hall in the Troy Hill section of that labor city. Additional scenes were shot at the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institute and the campus of Carnegie-Mellon University, both found in the Pittsburgh area. The look of the film is gritty, and the filmmakers also make effective use of locations in Detroit and Chicago.

Yet it is Nicholson's performance that makes HOFFA special, as this Academy Award-winning actor pulls out all the stops to fashion a tough-talking Teamsters Union boss. Eyes glazed behind a carefully crafted, Hoffa-like nose, Nicholson suggests a larger-than-life, legendary figure. He is a pleasure to watch, in particular during the congressional hearings and at the Teamsters' 1957 Miami convention at which Hoffa was elected president of the union. Even though most filmgoers in 1992 chose to see Nicholson's performance in A FEW GOOD MEN, which opened a few weeks before HOFFA and eclipsed it as the serious film of the Christmas season, HOFFA offers yet another glorious performance by one of Hollywood's great actors, one surprisingly not honored by the Oscar. (Reviewed by Douglas Gomery.)


Country of Origin: USA

Release Date: 1992

Production Line:
Edward R. Pressman, Danny DeVito, and Caldecot Chubb, in association with Jersey Films; released by Twentieth Century-Fox

Director: Danny DeVito

Cinematographer: Stephen H. Burum

File Editor: Lynzee Klingman
Ronald Roose

Additional Credits:
Production design - Ida Random
Art direction - Gary Wissner
Set decoration - Brian Savegar
Set design - Charles Daboub, Jr. - Robert Fechtman
Casting - David Rubin - Debra Zane
Visual consulting - Harold Michelson
Sound - Thomas D. Causey
Makeup - Ve Neill
Special makeup effects - Greg Cannom
Costume design - Deborah L. Scott
Music - David Newman

MPAA Rating: R

Run Time: 140 minutes

Cast:
James R. Hoffa - Jack Nicholson
Bobby Ciaro - Danny DeVito
Carol D'Allesandro - Armand Assante
Frank Fitzsimmons - J. T. Walsh
Pete Connelly - John C. Reilly
Young kid - Frank Whaley
Robert F. Kennedy - Kevin Anderson
Red Bennett - John P. Ryan
Billy Flynn - Robert Prosky
Jo Hoffa - Natalija Nogulich
Hoffa's attorney - Nicholas Pryor
Ted Harmon - Paul Guilfoyle
Solly Stein - Cliff Gorman
Father Doyle - Dale Young

Review Sources:
Boston Globe. December 25, 1992, p. 57.
Chicago Tribune. December 25, 1992, Take 2, p. A.
Entertainment Weekly. January 8, 1993, p. 32.
The Hollywood Reporter. December 21, 1992, p. 6.
Los Angeles Times. December 25, 1992, p. F1.
The New York Times. December 25, 1992, p. B1.
Newsweek. December 28, 1992, p. 56.
The Philadelphia Inquirer. December 25, 1992, Weekend, p. 3.
USA Today. December 25, 1992, p. 1D.
Variety. December 21, 1992, p. 4.
The Washington Post. December 25, 1992, p. B1.

Named persons in Production Credits:
Edward R. Pressman
Danny DeVito
Caldecot Chubb

Studios named in Production Credits:
Jersey Films
Twentieth Century-Fox

Screenplay (Author):
David Mamet

Color

Video Available.

Genre:


Biography, Drama
Award Citations:
Academy Awards - Nomination - Cinematography - Stephen H. Burum
Academy Awards - Nomination - Makeup - Ve Neill
Academy Awards - Nomination - Makeup - Greg Cannom
Academy Awards - Nomination - Makeup - John Blake

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