Fading Gigolo

Financial fissures beget liaising insurances while potential clients attract attentive patrolpersons in John Turturro's Fading Gigolo, wherein the world's oldest profession brings good fortune to Murray (Woody Allen) and Fioravante (John Turturro), suddenly caught-up in an historical vortex, secularly lucrative, religiously blasphemed.

The film unreels pleasantly enough, risks taken, rewards cashed-in, comical awkwardness syncopating charm, Midnight Cowboy's lighter side.

Fioravante is a strong character, mild-manneredly reflexive, sensitive yet powerful, equanimously conscious.

His love for Avigal (Vanessa Paradis) isn't tragic or heartbreaking, more like a mature delicate yet robust scintillating red wine, caressed then invested, with lucid modest elegance.

About 50 minutes in I thought, is it starting to drag?, but then Avigal appeared again, and I was immediately reminded of my nightly glass of red wine, and then knew that it wasn't starting to drag at all.

Ancient religious practices follow, a ridiculous patriarchal kerfuffle, chillingly yet playfully impassing an ancient contemporary dialectic.

The negative side of prostitution, apart from a requisite ethical dilemma, is totally absent from the film, but it is a lighthearted comedy, presenting issues of race/ethnicity, identity, and community from a temperately confrontational perspective.

Apart from the nut with the baseball bat.

Not sure if I'm reading too much into some of Woody Allen's introductory lines, but from an off-the-wall point of view, it's as if he's handing off his reins to Mr. Turturro, either sincerely or mischievously, who proves he could be a worthy successor.

There's a volatile scene near the beginning involving a traffic accident.

Minor characters feud to introduce Dovi (Liev Schreiber).

More scenes like this one throughout, not necessarily volatile, just ones which interject cameos to inquisitively motivate the action, work well.

Highlighting the multidimensional nature of the world at large.

Thereby romanticizing the role of individuals within it.

He sort of does this with Murry's kids, but they have a direct relationship to a major character, which lessens their impact.