Simple Men (1992)

"Simple Men is Hartley's best film yet.  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Editor's Note Director Hal Hartley's third feature film follows two brothers on as they travel across Long Island, New York. Bill McCabe (Robert Burke), a tough-talking ladies' man, has just pulled a robbery and has been double-crossed by his lover. Shortly thereafter, his younger brother, Dennis (Bill Sage), a bookish scholar, convinces him to help search for their father, a radical (and former baseball hero) who's escaped government custody. Along the way, the two encounter both "trouble and desire," when they meet numerous eccentric characters including Elina, an epileptic Romanian girl, and Kate, a woman with a psychotic ex-husband. More of a road movie than Hartley's previous films, SIMPLE MEN takes the director's uniquely stilted style and puts it (literally) in motion, as the McCabe brothers set out to find their fugitive father. Burke and Sage are excellent in their leading roles, enhancing Hartley's trademark clipped dialogue with exceptional performances.

	Elina Lowensohn
	Karen Sillas
	Martin Donovan
	Robert Burke
	William Sage
	Daniel Ouellette - Production Designer
	Hal Hartley - Director
	Hal Hartley - Writer
	Jerome Brownstein - Producer
	Michael Spiller - Cinematographer
	Steve Hamilton - Editor
	Yo La Tengo - Musical Score

After being spurned and double-crossed by his lover, a small-time thief reluctantly agrees to join his younger brother, an intellectual college undergrad, on a search for their missing, legendary father. On the way they run into two of the most unusual and fascinating women they have ever met, and both men are soon distracted from their mission by the intriguing prospects of romance.

"Be good to her and she'll be good to you."----Security guard to Bill (Robert Burke), about a necklace bearing the image of the Virgin Mary

"I've never been to Long Island."----Dennis (Bill Sage) to Bill |"Yes, you have."----Bill |"I have?"----Dennis |"Yeah, you've been to Queens. Queens is a part of Long Island."----Bill|"Queens is a part of New York City. I don't think it's really considered Long Island."----Dennis|"It's part of New York City, but it's on Long Island."----Bill|"Queens is a borough."----Dennis |"A borough on Long Island."----Bill|"A borough of New York City."----Dennis |"Right."----Bill |"Long Island's a terminal moraine."----Dennis|"What?"----Bill|"A terminal moraine. It's the earth deposited by a receding glacier."----Dennis|"Well @#$%! What the hell are we waiting for? Come on!"----Bill

"Listen, Dennis, let me tell you something about the law. The law is just a contract between the rich people who own everything and the poor people who want to take it away from them. The contract says: If you break the law and you get away with it, fine. But if you break the law and get caught, you gotta play by the rules and pay the price. It's no big moral thing. You don't have to have an ideology to knock over a liquor store!"----Bill

"What's that thing?"----Ned Rifle (Jeffery Howard) to Bill|"That's the Blessed Virgin, Ned."----Bill|"She's pretty, huh?"----Ned |"Not only is she pretty, but she's got a nice personality. And she's the mother of God."----Bill

"Ned, there's no such thing as adventure. There's no such thing as romance. There's only trouble and desire."----Bill |"Trouble and desire."----Ned|"That's right. And the funny thing is, when you desire something you immediately get in trouble. And when you're in trouble, you don't desire anything at all."----Bill

Rolling Stone
"...The witty and resonant SIMPLE MEN is Hartley's best film yet....He touches raw nerves..." 10/01/1992 p.73

Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
This style has the effect of pushing the viewer away from the movie; a film like Simple Men d - Roger Ebert