SnoopyStyle
Frankie (Michelle Pfeiffer) is an isolated waitress working at a greasy Manhattan diner with a cast of wacky characters. She's recovering from a bad marriage. Her best friend is gay neighbor Tim (Nathan Lane). Johnny (Al Pacino) recently got out of jail. Diner owner Nick (Héctor Elizondo) gives the ex-con a chance as the fry cook.There is a needed change when a romantic role written for Kathy Bates goes to Michelle Pfeiffer. The switch can be done smartly. Pfeiffer looks like a Hollywood starlet no matter how plain the makeup girls try to make her. The simple fix is every straight male character has to make a pass at her. It would be more believable and it would allow Frankie to reject every one of them. She would be alone by choice which fits her character perfectly. It's really weird when Pfeiffer asks why Pacino wants to go out with her. Get a mirror.If one ignores that problem, this is a pretty good romance with two of the best actors around. They deliver compelling performances. Pacino has a fun bit of prison sex. Pfeiffer's loneliness is palpable but her beauty does need acknowledgment by the movie.
classicsoncall
I'm surprised by the number of reviewers stating that this movie is on their Top 10 list; I thought it was an adequate story though it tried really hard to over play the will she/won't she angst of Michelle Pfeiffer's character. For Pacino, this was not in the Michael Corleone league, but his performance was generally up for the task. For a while there I thought Nick's (Hector Elizondo) daughter Pookie was going to have a larger role to play but I can't even find her name in the credits. Too bad, I thought there was something going on there.Usually in older films (and this one's not that old) I find myself making a mental note of things like the cost of merchandise relative to today's prices, so it was a bit of reverse shock to see Frankie (Pfeiffer) anxiously eyeing a VCR machine at the sale price of $199. If you can even find one today, it would be outdone by a DVD player for about thirty bucks. Just goes to show you how the advance of technology has made life better over time.My main disappointment with the film is that they never played the song 'Frankie and Johnny'. Granted, it might have been a downer since after all, Frankie pulled out that forty-four and plugged Johnny with it. But it doesn't sound all that bad when Sam Cooke tells the story.
Paddy-49
Twenty years on – and "Frankie and Johnny" has arguably improved with age. This is because it deals with the rawest human emotions and vulnerabilities and shows that when life is tough the need for community is greatest. Even if, maybe especially if, the members of that community are as dysfunctional and scarred as we are. For many of the characters in this movie life has been very tough indeed. The restaurant where Johnny gets a job, and where Frankie works, is at the centre of the lives of many of its regulars. It does not have "Community Centre" on a sign above the door – but this is, in effect, what it is. The tolerant proprietor, Nick, sympathetically portrayed by Hector Elizondo, has built that community and he is as protective of his customers as he is of his staff. Nick is a Greek-American and it is subtly suggested that the customers and employees at his little restaurant are a sort of extended Greek family - although in fact they are as ethnically diverse as New York can be."Frankie and Johnny" is above all about loneliness. Frankie has a real family – we see them at the beginning at a christening – but it is clear that they have their own lives and that Frankie, partly out of choice, is not really part of that world. As the film develops we start to realise that Frankie's introspection and the barriers she erects around herself are attributable to a couple of failed relationships in the past. In one her partner left her for her best friend and in the other she was physically abused to the extent that she cannot have children. Johnny is equally damaged. We see him released from prison but it is not until quite late in the film that it is revealed that his crime, whilst serious, was a one-off fraud and that he is no serial offender. In prison he learnt to cook and that is now more than just a job to him – it has become a passion. Johnny was married but his wife left him and took their two children into a new relationship. There is a brief poignant vignette when Johnny watches his children with their mother and new "father" in an American dream suburban family scene – complete with white picket fence. He leaves without revealing his presence.From early in the movie it is clear that Frankie and Johnny are made for each other. Despite the wounds they carry (actual physical wounds to her head in Frankie's case) they are good caring people – albeit that like Nick they do this without wearing a "Social Worker" badge. Frankie has a moving relationship with a Gay neighbour, Tim (Nathan Lane) that manages to avoid being patronising or clichéd. Similarly her bonding with her fellow workers is natural and important to them all – not least Cora the archetypal strong, no-nonsense New York woman who, deep down, is as lonely as she is. Like all the characters Cora is deeper than, and different to, her veneer. When a woman heavily pregnant with twins comes to the restaurant she touches her belly and says "People think I'm a tough b*tch, but it ain't true. Sh*t like this chokes me up." That Frankie and Johnny will eventually end up happily together seems obvious form the start, but that doesn't always happen in the movies does it? Along the way they battle, largely out of fear on Frankie's side. Johnny ardour is declared early on and we don't doubt that it is genuine. Frankie is more circumspect – unsurprisingly given the extent that she has been damaged by her last relationships. So whilst the romance is strong a happy ending is not certain and when it happens we are grateful because it is uplifting to think that even if the barriers are high they can sometimes be removed in the interests of true love.The casting of Frankie and Johnny is very good and all the minor characters, however crazy they may be are utterly credible because they are so well played. As for the leads both Pacino and Pfeiffer give sensitive and credible performances although both of them are so devastatingly good looking that they do seem a bit out of place amongst the ordinary New Yorkers who are very "West Side" in appearance rather than Upper East. Not many of them shop on Fifth Avenue whereas Frankie and Johnny do look a bit like people who habitually do this, except on dress-down day. Nevertheless although they are younger and lovelier than the characters in the original stage play ("Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune") this works fine and doesn't detract from the heart and the humanity of the story.A year or so after Frankie and Johnny was released the long running TV series Friends premiered. One of the central characters in Friends was, of course, Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) who was initially a waitress in a Coffee House with a history of complex and damaging relationships behind her. Rachel Green is not Frankie – but there is a strong parallel not least because it is "friends" in both cases who provide the support when it's needed. Frankie says at one point "I'm afraid. I'm afraid to be alone, I'm afraid not to be alone. I'm afraid of what I am, what I'm not, what I might become, what I might never become. I don't want to stay at my job for the rest of my life but I'm afraid to leave. And I'm just tired, you know, I'm just so tired of being afraid". The message of Frankie and Johnny is that friends can reduce that fear. Love can take it away.
Framescourer
A light-touch - soft-touch - but by no means flippant romantic comedy between two middle-aged, working-class New Yorkers. Franky and Johnny also has the considerable clout of some great acting and proved chemistry. Surely this film secured its green light when Pacino and Pfeiffer agreed to come together eight years after their doomed romance in Scarface?Whatever its provenance it's a delight although, like many romcoms the drama fizzles out somewhat when the lovers finally come together. The drama of Franky and Johnny is in the seduction against a background of disappointment and failure. Al Pacino's Johnny is an ex-con; his job as a grill man in a diner might not be the last chance saloon but the table of options for his life has been seriously depleted. Frankie (Pfeiffer) is also heading for a permanent position on the shelf until Johnny gets a crush on her. Cue all sorts of easy-going shenanigans familiar from the likes of When Harry Met Sally and Pretty Woman (also directed by Marshall) and churned up with some super cameo interjections from Nathan Lane as the beard-in-proxy. A great date movie. 6/10
