Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

jjnxn-1 Cassavetes scores a bullseye with this wonderfully gritty crime drama. Shot when New York City was still a seedy mess before the beginning of, at least in part, its renewal the film has a very noirish grungy feel that add immeasurably to the power of its impact. There are no lovely shots of Central Park or sweeping buildings, you can feel the grime and closeness of the city moving in on Gloria and her young charge. That's all fine and dandy but what makes this story go, and the film would be nothing without her, is the magnificent Gena Rowlands in a diamond hard characterization of a been around gun moll who has absolutely no problem doing whatever is necessary to maintain her safety and that of the young boy whose care she has unexpectedly become responsible for. Always a superior talent she is simply amazing in this. The film itself is entertaining but watch this to see one of the most talented actresses ever ply her trade.

amccallum-1 An important entry in the list of gritty 1970s films (released 1980) that served as a counterpoint to anodyne plastic schlock available in the mainstream.Gloria herself is a metaphor for New Yorkers - complaisant in the crumbling of the city around them, existing in an uneasy complicity with the forces of corruption, and bolting herself into an apartment that vainly attempts to keep the decrepitude of the Bronx at bay.Ms. Rowlands does a workmanlike job. She shines at moments when depicting ferocity in confronting mobsters with a gun in her hand; but at other times, she is less convincing in showing that she is conflicted about continuing to protect the child whom she takes in at its father's behest, moments before he and the rest of the family are liquidated by the mob.Her work would have been easier if the script had been more coherent. At one point the two protagonists take refuge in an apartment, huge and luxe, without any apparent explanation of whose it is or how Gloria has the key. It would help if so much of the dialog were not inaudible. Full marks to Cassavetes for trying for authentic sound, but there are moments when we wish he could have looped a few lines that sound as if they were recorded in the next room by someone coughing through a cushion.Ultimately, the star of this movie is the Bronx itself, shown at the depths of the Dinkins administration. The flaking paint and dingy lighting of decaying hallways and stairwells; potholed streets and shuttered stores. New Yorkers will value this film for the hugely evocative portrayal of the city as she was, when she was on her knees. Thirty years later, recession or not, New York City is a different world.

edwagreen Under the superb direction of husband John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands a worthy Oscar nominated 1980 performance for "Gloria." A gritty tale of a neighbor, who happens to be mob-connected, shields a young boy whose family has been wiped out by the mob since the father, an accountant for them, squealed to the FBI about their work.As Gloria, Rowlands turns in a gritty, mean performance as one lady-killing machine. She is as tough as they come but comes to have a heart for the young boy under her care.In some respects, when there is no shooting, the film often takes comic turns. I just loved the 6 year old compared Gloria to a dame and he as her man. The kid certainly has the street-smarts and that in itself makes this film engaging.

MisterWhiplash Gloria is riveting in its own weird way, but it's exactly because writer/director John Cassavetes doesn't want to play by the rules and make things very easy for the audience. His technique isn't as footloose and fancy free as in his other pictures like Faces and Killing of a Chinese Bookie (which maybe makes it slightly less gritty than those films), but considering that this is somewhat more of a higher-budgeted 'Hollywood' picture it certainly isn't entirely conventional. Which isn't to say that the formula doesn't sound as tried-before, because it does: a young kid possible see some bad things happening involving some gangsters and his family, and is protected by a neighbor, tough-talking, smoking', trigger-happy dame Gloria Swanson (yeah yeah, like the actress), and the two go on the run from the mobsters all over New York City.As with a film like Leon: The Professional, which had gender roles reversed and minus the assassin-tutoring, there's something to be said for the shattering of innocence through the act of murder. In the case of Gloria it's never really clear exactly that Phil's family is dead- he just knows, more or less, he can't get back home to them and has to stick with this lady he (more or less) loves kind of by default. It's a disturbing situation made more-so by how the behavior and conversations go between the uneasy and hard-boiled Gloria and this precocious but bright young Puerto Rican kid who has his father's 'book' the mob wants. Now, some of the plotting isn't always air-tight, and the whole significance of wanting to go to Pittsburgh remains fuzzy throughout.But there's an energy to the picture, something that keeps us wanting to see where these two will go, or how they'll get back together again if they're only momentarily separated by getting off the wrong subway train. It's slightly spiky mixing of melodrama and film-noir, and it has a lot more than I would ever think Cassavetes would be capable of as a genre director. But what makes the film more than just decent fare, or rather a fine but less-than-great diversion for the director, is his wife Rowlands as he title part. She's so good here, so bad-ass, so terribly mis-matched with this kid played by John Adames for all the right reasons for the story (who I can't decide yet was either very good or very bad in the part, or both), that any big story or character gaps can be forgiven. This is a story of paranoia as much as a chase for Cassavetes, and he pulls off this thrilling sensation of 'will they get away with this' than expected.Nowhere near a great film at all, but it's enjoyable and rollicking fun with a crazily impressive lead.