Jerry and Tom

This first-rate motion picture features popular Joe Mantegna (CELEBRITY) in an edgy, offbeat story about two second-rate used car salesmen moonlighting as hit men for the mob. A quiet family man by day, Tom (Mantegna) teaches his new partner Jerry (Sam Rockwell, GALAXY QUEST) all he knows about his other job -- that of professional killer! But even if he's shocked at first, the brash young Jerry soon acquires such a taste for his new profession that it scares everyone around him ... even those who scare people for a living! Also starring William H. Macy (FARGO, BOOGIE NIGHTS) and Ted Danson (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, MUMFORD) in memorably funny roles, JERRY AND TOM is sure to be a hit with anyone who's ever enjoyed the wit and intrigue of Hollywood's best mobster movies!

Jerry and Tom is not the cartoonish comedy its culturally loaded title would suggest, but an off-beat buddy picture with a deft directorial touch that doesn't quite lift it from its verbose stage origins. Jerry (Sam Rockwell) is a fumbling car-lot gopher in the wrong place at the wrong time. He watches paternal, easygoing coworker Tom (Joe Mantegna) blithely strangle a man to death. He's a used-car salesman by day and a blue-collar hit man by night, and he gets his assignments right from the lot owner (a paunchy, punchy Maury Chaykin). Before long Tom is mentoring Jerry, a real cool customer who gets downright chilling in his sadistic delight in murdering strangers for cash. Veteran character actor Saul Rubinek makes his directorial debut in this adaptation and expansion of Rick Cleveland's short stage play, eschewing style (though his smooth scene transitions are lovely and inventive) for ensemble performance. His cast (including William H. Macy, Ted Danson, Peter Riegert, and a sly turn by Charles Durning as a retiring pro who may have done both Kennedy and Elvis--"I ain't saying I did, and I ain't saying I didn't") is uniformly excellent. It's a character piece for guys, where the violence is left largely (though not completely) off-screen and the working-class killers spend their hours talking about lost loves, family crises, and power tools. --Sean Axmaker