'The Narrows' is familiar story with authentic ring

• By JOHN WIRT
• Movie critic
• Published: Jun 19, 2009

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A contemporary drama set between the contrasting territories of Brooklyn and Manhattan, The Narrows follows a familiar story about a character who strives to escape his humble beginnings.

Mike Manadoro lives with his widower father, Vinny, in Bay Ridge, a working-class Italian neighborhood. Mike’s dad is a retired sanitation worker living on disability. Vinny supplements his disability benefits by being a bookie, a job that requires him to pay protection money to the mob.

The Narrows, a modestly budgeted independent film being released today in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Baton Rouge and several other cities, stars Kevin Zegers (Transamerica, The Jane Austen Book Club and Dawn of the Dead) as Mike, a young man who wants to be a professional photographer. Vincent D’Onofrio co-stars as Vinny, the father who doesn’t understand his creative son and can’t afford to send him to college. 

Mike and Vinny’s honestly portrayed relationship in The Narrows, a film based on Tim McLoughlin’s novel, Heart of the Old Country, is one of the movie’s aces. Accents, dialogue and an ensemble of unglamorous characters have an authentic ring, too. Except for the film’s frequent camera tricks, which come close to mannerism, you’d never known that Francois Velle, a native of France, directed this very American story.

Mike, already tied to his ethnic heritage and class, immerses himself deeper still when he accepts a lucrative job from Tony (Titus Welliver), the neighborhood mob boss. Even as predictable results follow, The Narrows offers scant groundwork for a life-changing confrontation instigated by Mike’s childhood friend, Nicky Shades (Eddie Cahill). Nicky is obviously intended to be an essential and tragic character, but he’s too sketchy to inspire empathy.

Handsome young leading man Zegers gets his earnest artist and good-fellow-in-training across, but it’s screen veteran D’Onofrio, shuffling around on a cane, mumbling and musing about his often disappointing life, who stealthily steals the picture.