MOVIE REVIEW : ‘GALVIN’: HIGH DRAMA PITS FATHER, SON

“Billy Galvin,” a little gem of a movie opening today at the Beverly Center Cineplex, shows that it is still possible to make us care about a conflict between a blue-collar father and son. Its style is as straightforward and traditional as its subject, but the film is fresh because it shines with emotional honesty and with a sense of total commitment on the part of writer-director John Gray, in his feature debut, and his excellent cast.

Lenny Von Dohlen has the title role as a wiry, likable young Bostonian who wants only to follow in his father’s footsteps, but his father, Jack (Karl Malden), is absolutely determined that he not do so. The volatile Jack Galvin has spent his entire adult life in construction as an ironworker, building skyscrapers, and wants a better life for his son to the extent that he does everything possible to keep Billy from being hired.

What we have here is the familiar failure of communication between father and son. Both Billy and Jack are men of strong yet tender emotions that the code of their society--predominantly Irish working class--has taught them they must repress. They can no more express love for each other than they can for the women who love them; when they speak to each other, which is rarely, it’s almost invariably at the top of their lungs. Indeed, Jack is so outrageous in his explosiveness that he’d be funny if at heart he weren’t so sad.

Why, you may ask, does Billy want to emulate Jack so badly? What’s so great about risking your life working with steel girders at dizzying heights? Gray makes his entire film the answer, allowing us to discover for ourselves that beyond admiring his forceful father, Billy really hasn’t got what it takes for college but is basically a steady, sensible type who would be good at following orders. Jack, on the other hand, has harbored such bitter feelings because of being denied the opportunity for a college education that it has blinded himself to his own worth as well as to his son’s limitations. Jack has actually had a better life than he realizes. For all his exasperating qualities, Jack is greatly and rightly respected in his trade, he’s got a loving, canny wife (Joyce Van Patten) who knows how to handle him, a large, comfortable home in a handsome old brownstone and, even if he won’t admit it, a fine son.

The film’s Boston locales, which include the Marketplace, a retail/office complex actually under construction during shooting, and the cozy, raucous bar where Billy’s girl Nora (Toni Kalem) works, contribute crucial authenticity. For a modestly budgeted film, “Billy Galvin” looks exceptionally good; cinematographer Eugene Shlugleit makes the exterior scenes at the construction site glow with the bright, shiny look of photo realist paintings. In a cast that scarcely could be bettered, Alan North lingers in the memory as a warm, boozy old guy who tries to be a substitute father to Billy; when he retires he discovers that he has “nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it in.”

“Billy Galvin” (PG for strong language) has afforded Malden one of his very best roles, and in his playing and that of his fellow actors we’re able to see ourselves; after all, it’s not just blue-collar fathers and sons who have trouble communicating.

‘BILLY GALVIN’

A Vestron Pictures release of an American Playhouse presentation in association with Cinema Ventures I, Robert A. Nowotny and Mark Clark of an Indian Neck-Mark Jett production. Executive producers Stuart Benjamin, Howard L. Baldwin, William Minot, Lindsay Law. Producers Sue Jett, Tony Mark. Writer-director John Gray. Camera Eugene Shlugleit. Music Joel Rosenbaum. Production designer Shay Austin. Costumes Oleska. Film editor Lou Kleinman. With Karl Malden, Lenny Von Dohlen, Joyce Van Patten, Toni Kalem, Keith Szarabajka, Alan North, Paul Guilfoyle, Barton Heyman, Lynne Charnay, Steve Sweeney, Mary Ann Stackpole.

Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

MPAA rating: PG (Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.)