The Movies Of Cathy Moriarty

All movies starring Cathy Moriarty and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Raging Bull (1980)

Kindergarten Cop (1990)

The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag (1992)

Cop Land (1997)

The Bounty Hunter (2010)

The Double (2013)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag (1992)

A comedy thriller, The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag has ambitions as an all-out madcap farce, but is only partially successful.

In a small Missouri town, Betty Lou Perkins (Penelope-Ann Miller) is a mousy and meek librarian, ignored by her co-workers and neglected by her police detective husband Alex (Eric Thal). When a mobster-turned-informant is shot dead in a local motel room, Alex is further immersed in his investigative work. While out walking the dog, Betty Lou stumbles upon the gun used for the murder, picks it up and is soon arrested.

Instead of explaining the circumstances Betty Lou decides this is her moment to be at the centre of attention, and falsely hints that she is guilty of committing the murder, shocking Alex and the whole community. Dropped into a jail cell to await a trial hearing, Betty Lou meets prostitute Reba (Cathy Moriarty), who is full of assertiveness advice. Inexperienced lawyer Ann Orkin (Alfre Woodard) offers to represent Betty Lou, while violent mobster boss Beaudeen (William Forsyth) arrives in town, believing that Betty Lou now holds incriminating tapes.

Directed by Allan Moyle, The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag boasts a terrific cast brimming with talented actresses. Penelope-Ann Miller, Alfre Woodard and Cathy Moriarty are joined by Julianne Moore and Catherine Keener in smallish early career roles. And the acting talent is a good fit for the primary theme of a woman finally deciding to stand up for herself.

Of course Betty Lou chooses the wrong time and the worst possible incident to decide that enough is enough and disrupt the prevailing order of her life. Her actions create the ideal conditions for a high energy screwball comedy, but Moyle's directing and the Grace Cary Bickley script are only partially capable of delivering on the premise. The comedy elements are average, and the violence, courtesy of Beaddeen, veers towards unnecessary extremes of psychotic behaviour.

The film is also hampered by lacklustre talent in the male acting department, Eric Thal an unfortunately bland presence and unable to generate neither chemistry nor authentic intensity. The sparse 89 minutes of running time suggest limitations somewhere in the concept development stage, and overall the film contains the whiff of a glorified made-for-television effort.

But Penelope-Ann Miller is a spark in the middle of Betty Lou's wacky exploits, and her quest for meaningful recognition resonates beyond the film's narrow confines. With or without a gun in her handbag, Betty Lou will demand that her voice be heard.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Raging Bull (1980)

The true story of middleweight champion boxer Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull chronicles a life that passes through boxing's glory and agony. Single-minded ambition combined with a dense self-centred personality and an inability to connect with anyone except at the business end of a fist ensured that LaMotta experienced the highs and the lows with equal intensity. Raging Bull is also a career highlight for Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese.

We meet Jake (De Niro) as a young fighter in the early 1940's, as he slowly makes a name for himself in low-level bouts. From a poor Bronx background, Jake has a short temper and suspicious personality that allows him to easily abuse his first wife and maintain only an edgy relationship with his loyal brother Joey (Joe Pesci). Jake has a thunderous punch and the ability to survive terrible beatings without being knocked-down.

His reputation rises with a series of victories, and his personal life seems to take a turn for the better when he courts and marries Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a young beauty from the neighbourhood. Jake believes that he is good enough to earn a title fight, and has the ambition to match his uncompromising fighting style. Never knocked down but with a mixed record, he takes on Sugar Ray Robinson in a series of fights that enhance his standing in the boxing world.

Despite blatantly throwing a fight to appease local crime lords, he eventually becomes world middleweight champion. But even at the top of the world Jake's insane jealousy means that he can trust no one, least of all Vickie and Joey. From the heights of success he has a long way to fall, as his personal life collapses and his career ends with mounting weight problems. He opens and operates a nightclub, but this lands him in jail after he unwittingly allows young girls to prostitute themselves out of his establishment. The story ends in 1964, with Jake establishing a niche for himself as an after-dinner entertainer.

Scorsese directs Raging Bull in brilliant black and white and using almost exclusively mid-range and close-up shots, as he delves deeply and at close quarters into the life and emotions of LaMotta. The movie is about the thin line between the forces that govern spectacular success and stunning failure; and boxing as a perfect metaphor. LaMotta's combative power and determination took him to the top; his inability to relate to others except through the lens of confrontation ensured his undoing. Scorsese makes sure that his cameras are never far from any of the forces, and LaMotta's life is portrayed as equally brutal inside and outside the ring. The graphic scenes of boxing violence are brutally intense, the black and white cinematography enhancing the sweat, blood and agony of close quarters combat between men of monstrous willpower.

De Niro gives one of the performances of his career, convincingly bringing LaMotta to life from a young man to a chastened but unremorseful fallen hero, capturing the right amount of drive and human failings without ever appearing to act. Filled with honest brooding intensity, the performance earned him the Academy Award as Best Actor for 1980. Opposite De Niro's LaMotta, Joey and Vickie are the only other major characters in the film. Joe Pesci became a leading character actor with his performance as Joey, and established the outline of the persona that he would perfect in GoodFellas ten years later, also alongside De Niro and Scorsese. Cathy Moriarty's debut as Vickie is memorable but unfortunately relatively statuesque.

Raging Bull is a timeless classic, the story of man's sometimes desperate struggle to control the potent conflicting forces that lie within, and that can both construct and destroy destiny.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.