Nicky's in trouble again. He's convinced there's a hit out on him. He won't leave the hotel room, even when his old pal Mikey shows up and bangs on the door. Mikey runs down to a coffee shop to get him some cream to settle his stomach. His efforts to get Nicky to flee town are fruitless. They end up on a frustrating nightlong odyssey across Philadelphia. Frustrating as Nicky can't decide what he wants to do. Have a drink? Go to a midnight movie? Visit his mother's grave? Visit a prostitute? He knows someone out there wants to kill him. It may have something to do with the money he took from a mob boss.
1976's MIKEY AND NICKY spends about half a day with two beaten down men with a long history of friendship, far from perfect. Through volumes of dialogue, we learn that Nicky is a showboating fool, never above using others for his own survival. Including Mikey, who has perhaps reached his limit and made a fatal decision. There are regrets. As the film progresses, we may not feel as sorry for Nicky as we did during those agonizing opening moments, when he's helplessly writing in a dingy hotel. Confidence returns, and he drags his childhood compadre through some highly uncomfortable encounters, all of which confirm Mikey's character analysis of him.
Both talk a mile, though surely John Cassavetes, as Nicky, has Peter Falk, as Mikey, beat. Some found the actor (also known for his highly idiosyncratic films as writer/director) to be too strident and Method. Improvising beyond tolerance. I found it mesmerizing. Falk's work is also highly impressive, more reactive, though never less than convincing. He even gets to rough up a barista at that coffee shop in a scene that echoes Jack Nicholson's diner exchange in FIVE EASY PIECES. That moment and the scene on the city bus (with M. Emmett Walsh as the driver!) are grimly funny, and seem more New York Cityish than Philly, but never mind.
Director Elaine May's direction is ragged and rawly excellent. Reports state that she shot a million feet of film, and often just left cameras running. She really captures the urban 1970s (this film was actually made in '73). Her script lays the "buddy film" bare, stripping any pretensions and examining the nuts and bolts and things that hide in the blackest recesses of a man's soul. There are some amazing speeches. That they are elicited from a feminist point of view makes MIKEY AND NICKY even better. The final scene is positively shattering, too. This is a milestone for all concerned, even Ned Beatty as a hitman having more than a bit of trouble on his assignment and worried he doesn't have enough money for gasoline.
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