Lesser Prophets Reviews

A Manhattan bookie trio, led by Jerry (George DiCenzo), gets the goat of Detective Iggy (Scott Glenn), because their electronic devices allow them to anticipate his raids. Meanwhile, dimwitted messenger boy Leon (John Turturro) protects his friend Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) and her son from Susan's abusive husband, who's stolen a fortune in paintings. When Susan asks him to whack her mate, good-natured Leon desperately seeks alternatives. Subsequently, Iggy locates Jerry and informs him that he'll call off those annoying raids, if Jerry forks over $11,000 that Iggy's brother stole from him to gamble with Jerry. This extortion &#151 and Iggy isn't budging &#151 pales beside Jerry's latest setback: Acting on a "sure" tip fed him by Leon (whose brother is a sports doctor), Jerry loses a fortune on a football bet. Facing ruin, Jerry has one thought: kill Leon. It's quirky! It's heartwarming! It's homogenized! In this irritating comedy-drama about circumventing the law, life's little people come upon us like a plague of idiots. Although some of the actors excel at playing human comedy, the film is so insistent that we like these eccentric characters that the only response is to push them away in self-defense. And Turturro flirts with self-adoration as the saintly dullard who's a catalyst for assorted crises. Slapstick chases, suppository jokes, and underworld lingo help the proceedings stammer to a cartoonish climax that will leave viewers gratefully saying, "Th-th-th-that's all folks!"