Touches You

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fresh and Exciting

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

"Dinner Rush" (2003) is a great color film noir movie packed with atmosphere, ECU's, and great food up close.It is a stylish movie about a single evening behind the scenes at a trendy New York City restaurant (in "Tribeca" which was a Manhattan warehouse district in the west "20's" only a few decades ago) successful because it is stylish....a restaurant run by a father and son Italian-American team which makes more than $250,000 on the night depicted, which is besieged by gangsters who demand to take it over, and have already murdered one of its two elderly owners.The movie keeps our attention from start to finish. The acting and writing is superb, and we like all the people portrayed, even the villains (always the mark of a great movie).In common with other great Italian "restaurant movies" ("Goodfellas" comes to mind), the closeup camera shots of wonderful food and wine served in large portions and goblets is one reason the movie is great.It's about good food served in a good restaurant where both the kitchen staff and the food service staff are all artists of high accomplishment.....performing artists providing a compelling and satisfying show for the lucky audience....the customers.Seeing "Dinner Rush" (2003) is like making an actual visit to a great, stylish NYC upscale Italian restaurant (which in the movie refuses to serve traditional "meatballs and spaghetti" type Italian food in favor of ultra-gourmet food of the sort trendy NYC food and restaurant reviewers live to write about).The entire movie is an experience in a cramped, close quarters space, which is always true of New York City restaurants. Spacious places no longer exist, especially if they only recently became prominent.The kitchen is tiny and crowded, and customer area is an elbow-to-elbow experience, and the frequent shots of wine, wine, wine (and occasional non-wine cocktail drinks) fit right in.Going to this incredible, memorable restaurant requires pain control, which is why the booze is not optional.....it's a requirement.This is a "night-time" (film noir) movie in which highlight scenes take place in small, dark spaces, with the climax scene at the end of the movie set in the downstairs men's toilet (where the two menacing gangsters are dispatched to their maker by a very unlikely hit man).The movie is packed with Extreme Closeups ("ECU's") where the entire screen is taken up with the faces of key actors, and sometimes background actors.I have never seen a movie this good with as many facial closeup shots as in this movie. A movie shot like that can only work if the actors are wonderful, and so is the script. Both actors and script are indeed wonderful in "Dinner Rush" (2000).This movie is a true work of cinematic art and genius.I first learned about it when I had just left the Algonquin Hotel restaurant on 44th St. in NYC and walked past the Harvard (University alumni) Club a few doors down. A sign in the window about 8 inches square quietly advised that "Dinner Rush" (2003) would be screened for members as part of the club's special film program.I never saw other publicity about the movie (which, it is true, I didn't learn about until 3 years after it was made), and thank my lucky stars the NYC Harvard Club's film enthusiasts put that sign in the club's front window for passers by like me to see.Great, great food and restaurant movie good in every way.-------- Written by Tex (David) Allen, SAG Actor.Email Tex Allen at [email protected] WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for movie credits and biography.

Wait a minute... Isn't that the Wall Street guy who I just decided was a fuzzy little teddy bear just a few scenes ago? This is a brilliant and very well executed (pun) piece of writing. I came across it accidentally on the late night movie channels and decided even before it was over that it was one of the best movies I never heard of. I love those kinds of surprises. The character development is strong and authentic. You will love the good ones, hate the bad ones and roll your eyes at the obnoxious ones. I care far less about the subject matter of a film than whether it puts me there. I WAS there and enjoyed every minute of it. But most enjoyable of all, if I'm not revealing too much about my vindictive nature, was the retribution. After a well crafted buildup of hatred for this slimy bag of garbage and his brother in law the whole problem is taken care of in a most efficient and totally unexpected manner. And by - of all people... well you'll just have to see it.

Great acting, slice-of-restaurant-life, kind of like THE SOPRANOS OPEN A RESTAURANT MEETS THE FOOD CHANNEL. Excellent acting by Danny Aiella and some little-known actors and the filming must have been done in a real restaurant. It reminded me of a really great Italian restaurant in Clifton, New Jersey and another in Monterey, California. It also made me miss the Italian neighborhood I grew up in in Jersey. And you will definitely NOT guess the ending, I promise you. It will also give you a different and new perspective on people who work on Wall Street. Evidently, they're not all dorks with accounting degrees. But he really SHOULD burn that tie!

"Dinner Rush" will inevitably be compared to "Big Night," and other food preparation/restaurant movies, but I think it holds its own as a delicious slice of one night of New York life. As one character plotzes: "When did eating out become theater?" The wonderful, winsome multi-ethnic ensemble of mostly New York actors --many born in Brooklyn according to the IMDb--who have done a lot of TV work are clearly enjoying making a movie as a coordinated team. Danny Aiello has his best, and somewhat similar, role since "City Hall." Many of the references may go over the heads of those West of the Hudson or East of the East River, whether to Tribeca (as a newly trendy neighborhood) or Danny Meyer (restaurant entrepreneur). Or even the digs at Queens as the home of mobsters, which were greeted by silence by the Queens audience I saw it with.The upstairs/downstairs of the kitchen scrambles vs. the dining pleasures and everyone's personal spices are lots of fun. The actors playing obnoxious customers, like Sandra Bernhard, do so with relish but not overplayed.Keep your palate clear by not looking at the ad campaign or reading the reviews, as I think they give the plot away and I was totally surprised by the ending, er, the dessert.(originally written 9/29/2001)