Eric Roberts – Zachary Mule

(DVD and Digital; ARC ENTERTAINMENT (86 minutes/Rated R); produced 2011, released 2014)

JESSE is the story of a troubled cop seeking peace in a bottle… actually, several bottles. She has recently returned home only to become the third cog in a severely dysfunctional family wheel, alongside her dope smoking (and very loud) mother and her dope selling (and very large) brother. When her brother goes missing – except for a foot – Jesse (played to the “Jersey Jewish Princess” hilt by Stephanie Finochio, a former professional wrestler known as Trinity) seeks retribution on the Mafia types who she believes killed him because he owed them more than ten thousand dollars in gambling debt. Along the way, she meets several dubious characters and an even greater number of dubious bottles of booze. Eric Roberts shows up (as he is wont to do) as a sympathetic bartender who recognizes Jesse from a news report about her walking into a market (or a liquor store… who knows with her) in the middle of a robbery. The bad guys yell at her; she doesn’t care for that, so… she shoots them, becoming an instant hero. Of course, she has sex with the bartender.

JESSE (Stephanie Finochio) (publicity still)

After threatening the mob guys with various kinds of pain and suffering, she goes home to find that her mother has been savagely beaten. Her next stop? A gun store where she purchases an over-the-counter cure for her problems: A sawed-off shotgun. After a series of strange sidetracks that muddle the plot and do nothing to move the story along, Jesse finds out about a meeting of several of the racketeers she believes are responsible for the discomfort recently visited upon her brother and mother (and ex-dog). Upon arriving at the scene, she discovers… her brother (minus one foot – in a brilliant strategical move, he amputated his own foot as part of a moneymaking scheme to sell his product at sports memorabilia shows, disguised as collectible baseball cards). Brother Mitchell (played by bad actor Mitchell Walters, swimming in a rancid cesspool of bad actors) is busy scamming the crew he used to scam the guys that wanted him dead… but, that was all a scam, too. Guess who gets the first shotgun blast from Jesse. So now, Mitchell has a hole in him almost as big as the plot of this film.

A JESSE gallery (Tamara Markowitz; Richard Lampese, Anthony Trentacosta and Dave M Lipsky; Stephanie Finochio and Michael Wright) (publicity stills)

It all sounds like fun, huh? Yeah… it’s all fun and games ’til someone loses a foot. Or until you have to sit through JESSE. To be fair, I really wanted to like this movie… the premise sounded so promising. So, thinking that I may be wrong or having a bad day or whatever, I asked a friend to watch JESSE, too. He made it through less than five minutes before shutting the thing off, declaring, “You’re kidding, right? I can’t handle any more of this screeching. It’s like watching JERSEY SHORE. Except those people were less annoying.” I don’t know; I guess somewhere there’s somebody who’s gonna watch this thing and think it’s the greatest flick they’ve ever seen. Maybe Snooki, if she gets her ADD under control. Wait… that’s it! Everybody involved in this movie obviously suffers from ADD and were off their meds! No, that theory doesn’t fly because Eric Roberts, Armand Assante and William Forsythe (generally fine actors if they’re given a decent script) are in it. Okay… I got it: Everybody but those three suffers from ADD; Assante, Forsythe and Roberts were paid truckloads of money to appear in an attempt to class up the proceedings. But, even they shoulda realized that you can’t shine a turd. No matter how hard you rub, you just end up getting it all over your hands. And on your resume. If you must watch, please place all sharp objects out of your reach. That way, you won’t be tempted to jab things in your eyes or ears to make JESSE go away.

(ARC ENTERTAINMENT/NEW FILMS INTERNATIONAL (99 minutes/Rated R); 2014)

BEYOND THE TROPHY is certainly an enjoyable roller coaster ride of a flick, kinda like GOODFELLAS or THE GODFATHER filtered through that bizarre Woody Allen mockumentary, TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN and THE DUKES OF HAZZARD (the TV show, not that stupid movie). Okay… I know that may make the movie sound like an inept free-for-all, with good-intentioned “bad guys” and imbecilic and boorishly corrupt police and, yeah, there is a bit of that going on but, I think it’s more of the general vibe of the film than an actual plot description (although, at one point, one of the characters does say, “I’m told that you have an offer that I cannot refuse”). It is, I suppose, a cautionary tale about power and how far a man will go to obtain that elusive “trophy.”

BEYOND THE TROPHY (Michael Madsen) (publicity still)

The story begins at the end, with the narrator (Cole Lambert, greasily played by Michael Madsen, the kingpin of the Los Angeles mob) explaining that the little scenario was actually set in motion seven months earlier. Flash back those seven months and, after he introduces himself and his chief rivalas, Lambert intones, “Hey, welcome to Los Angeles, gangster capitol of the Western world. And, I can prove it. Alright, so this is what happened, best as I remember it. This is based on actual events, so… the names and identities have all been changed… to protect the guilty, to protect the innocent or, to protect me.” And so begins the chronicle of a seven month downward spiral of a good cop slowly going bad.

BEYOND THE TROPHY (Stephen Cloud) (publicity still)

What follows is a confounding, semi-circular tale of lies, deceit, shady business dealings, gangsters (Lambert’s LA faction and a Las Vegas faction run by Gino, played by Robert Miano), mobsters (of the Russian and Cuban varieties), crooked cops, young idealistic cops, undercover cops, strippers, underage strippers, undercover strippers, car chases, shoot outs and – most confusing of all – cops double-crossing other cops who are busy double-crossing the bad guys who are double-crossing the cops so that they can double-cross the other bad guys who are double-crossing… I think you get the idea. You gotta have uninterrupted time (a little over 90 minutes) to watch BEYOND THE TROPHY or you will never be able to keep all of the underhanded dealings straight in your head. Situations and partners change so quickly that even the slightest distraction will have you lost in the nether-regions of some obscure sub-plot. But, then, that’s half the fun of watching. Most of the characters are so sleazy, you may spend some gray matter thinking up a cool demise for each.

BEYOND THE TROPHY (Stephen Cloud and Michael Masini) (publicity still)

As undercover police officers Danny (Michael Masini) and Terry (Stephen Cloud) are outed to their crime “bosses,” Gino and Cole are forced to team up, taking down the Russian mob czar and several of their own double-dealing underlings in an attempt to get at the cops. In the middle of all of this is Gino’s one true love, Angela (Ali Costello), who he presents to Danny in an effort to get the semi-crooked cop to tip his hand. Of course, as is often the case, Angela and Danny fall for each other, effectively adding another double-cross to the double-cross attempted by Gino. The Russian mob, having been infiltrated by Terry (he’s married to the bosses niece) and Officer Chastity Bachman (Brooke Newton), the daughter of Detective Sergeant Bachman (Eric Roberts), who may or may not be on the take for one or more of the criminal elements involved. By the end of the movie, there is one man left standing, with a surprise ending that – given the backstabbing throughout – no one will see coming (at least, I didn’t).

BEYOND THE TROPHY (Eric Roberts) (publicity still)

Bottom line for BEYOND THE TROPHY: I wasn’t sure after the first 10 minutes or so if I would even make it through the whole thing. However, I stuck with it and glad I did. The story is an ingenious take on the gangster genre and is thoroughly entertaining. Just don’t get distracted while you’re watching!

WHAT’S INSIDE