A banal brothers’ battle

>> Deuces Wild is a lifeless retread

by MATTHEW HAYS

The sexy cast of Deuces Wild don’t really seem to be acting their way through the movie. Instead, the studs who populate the latest young-Italian-men-fighting-their-way-through-a-nasty-’50s-Brooklyn-life seem to be merely posing.
Stephen Dorff and Brad Renfro, who seem wildly miscast here, play brothers caught up in (surprise!) a turf war with a bunch of other hardened youts. Why they’re fighting isn’t so clear, but I guess men of this age in this environment have no choice. Predictably enough, the men involved put lots of grease in their hair, treat their girlfriends in a questionable manner, and swear all sorts of revenge on those other punks, who haven’t learned to stay on the other side of the tracks.

Deuces Wild has the been-there, done-that syndrome, and has it badly. In an effort to evoke other young-studs-go-wrong movies, Matt Dillon is cast in a supporting role, evoking the infinitely superior Coppola efforts Rumble Fish and The Outsiders. It’s an effort at a tip of the hat, but instead it just serves to remind us of what an empty piece of junk we’re in.
Most of the cast seem smart enough to know that Deuces Wild is an empty retread, thus their performances rise to the occasion. Renfro, who was so excellent in the menacing Bully, here feels completely out of the loop. Sure, the fellas and their molls look good—they should’ve just opted for a ’50s nostalgia fashion shoot—but someone forgot to remind the filmmakers about dimension.

The cast does break up their posing a bit with some fight sequences. Here, director Scott Kalvert (Basketball Diaries) resorts to the cheapest tactics possible, things like slo-mo, to emphasize how dramatic the punchouts are. Things got so dire at about the half-way mark, I almost expected Henry Winkler to show up, saying “Heeeeeeeey” and punching the juke box.

But there is a redeeming wrinkle in this film, and it comes in the form of an oddball casting choice. Deborah Harry shows up as one of the kids’ demented mother, babbling on about things incoherently. I kept wondering if Harry was acting or if this was some previously-unseen home-movie footage of her in the ’80s, late one night after a binge. At least there’s one bit of unintentional hilarity lurking in the midst of Deuces Wild, an otherwise tame and predictable feature. :

Deuces Wild opens Friday, May 3