MOVIE REVIEW : ‘FLANAGAN’: FLAWED, BUT ENDEARING

There’s nothing unusual about an aspiring New York actor driving a cab to pay the rent, but no actor, it’s safe to say, is quite like Philip Bosco, who has the title role in “Flanagan” (at the Beverly Center Cineplex and UA Coronet, Westwood), an endearing if flawed little film. For openers, Bosco’s cabbie is 51--and he dreams of becoming a Shakespearean actor.

In his feature directorial debut, Scott Goldstein (who co-wrote the script with Edmond Collins) has two strong pluses going for him: first, Bosco, a veteran character player in his first film lead, and, second, the ability to suggest that the cab driver suffers the plight of any individual who has a gift that sets him apart from his particular world. Actually, anyone who’s felt that family responsibilities prevented him or her from a full-time pursuit of long-cherished goals can identify with Flanagan.

In the large, bulky, open-faced Bosco, Goldstein has an actor who looks like a seasoned cabbie but can really play Shakespeare. (Flanagan’s specialty for auditions is a scene from “Richard II”--or any of the sonnets.) In telling Flanagan’s story, however, Goldstein and Collins spend too much time showing him with his family--it doesn’t take much to reveal the mediocrity and lack of sympathy of his wife, who habitually plays the horses, (Olympia Dukakis) and their two surly layabout sons (Brian Bloom, Steven Weber).

We need to see Flanagan going the rounds, trying to land a role. We’re shown only that Flanagan is sabotaged at an audition for a Toronto Shakespeare company because one of the men for whom he is reading was rejected by him when the man, riding in Flanagan’s cab, had made sexual overtures to him. It doesn’t help the film’s credibility that the decidedly middle-aged Flanagan is a most unlikely gay sex object--and that the entire gratuitous sequence and its eventual resolution is so contrived, so dependent upon shrill stereotyping as to seem homophobic. Why not simply show Flanagan facing rejection because no one has enough imagination to cast him in Shakespeare despite his evident talent and training?

Yet along the way--and before “Flanagan” finally goes over the top in an all-stops-out sentimental finish--there are the pleasures of its warmth, intimacy and the caring manner in which it was made. The film, for which Goldstein composed a score for piano, has a real New York feel to it, not just in setting but in its casting of actors for their believability rather than glamour.

As Flanagan’s mother, Geraldine Page once again plays (to the hilt) an aged Irish widow, but here’s she’s lots gentler than she was in “The Pope of Greenwich Village.” William Hickey, who was the gleefully evil cadaverous capo of “Prizzi’s Honor,” is seen briefly in flashbacks as Flanagan’s drunk of a father who died when the lad was but 13, bequeathing him only a love of Shakespeare. Linda Thorson is Flanagan’s much younger lover, a commercial artist with her own all-consuming dreams.

“Flanagan” (rated R for some nudity, some strong language and adult situations) is the kind of film that leaves you wishing you could like it better than you do. ‘FLANAGAN’

A United Film Distribution Co. release of a Tenth Muse production. Producers Mark Slater, Scott Goldstein. Director Scott Goldstein. Screenplay Edmond Collins, Goldstein. Camera Ivan Strasburg. Art director Ruth Ammon. Film editor Scott Vickery. With Philip Bosco, Geraldine Page, Linda Thorson, William Hickey, Olympia Dukakis, Brian Bloom, Steven Weber.

Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

MPAA-rated: R (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian).