Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 5060037268885
Format: PAL
Number Of Discs: 1
Region Code: 2
Sales Rank: 172704
Theatrical Release Date: December 21, 1976
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
It's not written or directed by John Cassavetes, but Elaine May's eclectic portrait of two petty, middle-aged goodfellas on the streets of Philadelphia is electrified by the same nervous energy and volatile personalities of Cassavetes's best work. Nicky (Cassavetes), a trembling wreck convinced there's a contract out on his life, calls his boyhood buddy, Mikey (Peter Falk), who comes to his aid in the middle of the night. Over the course of one long night stretching to dawn, they scramble through city streets, smoky bars, dark alleys, and a graveyard of ancient memories of camaraderie and duplicity. While they engage in mind games and accusations, a betrayal brews in the background. The tragedy of the drama is that they are likely the best friends either ever had, and the closest thing to family either of them has left. May takes her low-budget picture to the streets and lets friends and former collaborators Cassavetes and Falk hit their shaggy rhythm while she peels back their sneering bravado to find sad, scared, vulnerable men underneath. It was a down-and-dirty shoot for May, whose rush can be seen in momentary glimpses of her crew in a few shots and overhead lights sometimes dipping into the frame, but that same on-the-fly drive gives the film its edgy, restless energy. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Mikey & Nicky
Directed with confidence by Elaine May, this gritty, pared-to-the bone crime drama about a penny ante Mafia associate who's on the run after embezzling a cache of money from the mob has a freewheeling, improvisational quality that perfectly matches its air of anxious desperation. The film succeeds brilliantly because of the give-and-take rapport between Falk and Cassavetes, who come across like a bickering old couple destined at any moment for a violent meltdown. Ned Beatty also contributes an edgy turn as the hired killer out to nail Nicky. With betrayal looming like an ominous shadow, "Nicky" is an engaging study of street life and strained male relations.
Rating: - "Mikey, You've Gotta Let Me In!"
"Mikey and Nicky" is a lost treasure, one of those gems that slip through the cracks when a big studio doesn't know what do to with a film that they think isn't "commercial" enough. Director Elaine May shot 1.5 million feet of film ("Gone With The Wind" took only 500,000 feet) and spent over two years tinkering with it before an exasperated Paramount Pictures took it away from her and dumped it into theaters in a butchered version in 1977. A completed. smoothly edited version wouldn't be available until the early '80's and this is the film that is now on DVD.
The film stars Peter Falk and John Cassavetes as two middle-aged gangsters. Nicky (Cassavetes) has stolen a lot of money from his employers and is on the run from a blustery, not-too-bright contract killer (Ned Beatty). A frantic Nicky calls Mikey (Falk), his friend from childhood, for help. Critics have noticed that this film seems almost a parody of Cassavetes' own directed films like "Faces" and "A Woman Under The Influence", and "Mikey and Nicky" does have a sort of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" improv feel to it. But a couple of viewings will reveal a careful structure to the screenplay. Different layers of these wiseguys' characters are gradually and surprisingly revealed until we get an almost literary, rounded understanding of them. Indeed, May is said to have started working on this as a play in the 1950's, and it does help to think of it as a theater piece that thrives on the action of language. (Although it is marvelously ... Read More
Rating:  - So-so crime drama
John Cassavetes (Nicky) and Peter Falk (Mikey) are two small-time hoods; Nicky is about to be bumped off by the mob and goes to Mikey for help. But Mikey is an ambiguous character who seems to be helping Nicky, but really isn't. Nicky gets it in the end--right on Mikey's doorstep. There is very strong acting by Cassavetes and Falk, much of it apparently improvised, though much of the movie has a very stagey quality to it: lots of dialogue in set scenes, not much action. Ellaine May directed, though not very well. Forgettable.
Rating: - Gut punch: best American crime film of the 70s
This is a truly startling piece of cinema, considering it was directed by Elaine May, half the Nichols-May comedy duo and director of the biting comedies A New Leaf (sadly unavailable on DVD...or even VHS) and The Heartbreak Kid. Mikey and Nicky is unlike any other of May's films and, in fact, unlike any other American crime film, with one possible exception. And that exception is John Cassevetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
The similarity is seen in the same jarring cinema verite-like style on display. The constant close shots of what the two main characters do throws us right into their problems, their anguish, their mental manipulations. The often sounds-like-it-was-improvised dialogue was, in fact, not improvised--but the two actors playing the title characters, John Cassevetes and Peter Falk, did a lot of improvising while the film was originally being shot. Almost none of it was used, but watching this film, you can't tell that; it feels like they're the actual characters who could say anything based on who these characters are, rather than actors portraying the characters. Brilliant acting.
Cassevetes is a unique talent whose films are unlike any others in American cinema and these no doubt provided the impetus for May's technique here; her inspiration was strong enough to cast Cassevetes himself as well as one of his regulars, Falk, as the two leads. These two play off each other so well it is impossible to stop the film and go to the fridge for a beer.
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Rating: - How Did This Film Go Unoticed??
I Personally belive this film shows the gritty side of 1970's
crime world in great detail. Nickey, a nervous wreck thinks
someone has put a contract out on his life, calls upon his buddy
Mikey to help him as the two pair go on long night of tearing up
the streets and smokey bars and realizes their deep betrayal with every turn. Throughtout this film it sometimes resembles
1973's Mean Streets but not quite as good but holds it's own
with it's restless, edgy style.
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