Huston hits not one false note in a picture that starts out looking slack and detached, the camera a mere eye-level chronicle of movement in that forties--dare I say Hawksian--way. (According to the film's painterly cinematographer Conrad Hall, Huston told him that they were making "anti-cinema.") But a spell is being cast over you, the protracted takes offering so unflinching a spectacle of sadsacks as to coax an identification with them. Keach steals the show in a performance of heartbreaking understatement, though it's important to point out that there are few others to upstage: Bridges plays a counterpoint, not a correlative, thus his screentime is brief (one imagines man's-man Huston finding the soft-centred Ernie little more than an amusing distraction, anyway (even the name is emasculating)), while Colasanto, crafting a shady promoter of some depth from almost nothing, was of a dying breed of actor born for ensemble--as "Cheers" would later demonstrate, he was a natural fit in the sitcom environment.

Keach must only really go toe-to-toe with Susan Tyrell, who, in a bravado, electric turn, plays an emotionally stunted alcoholic on whom Tully makes the mistake of leaning--she takes more than he can give in return; rarely has an actress placed this much faith in the humiliation of her character, and it's no surprise that she was Oscar-nominated in the role. What might shock viewers, though, is Fat City's placid surface--it's Huston's least brawny picture this side of Annie, a movie that could be called antithetical to Raging Bull in its exploration of the mortal anguish that keeps a man from living up to his potential rather than the anger that can usher him through life on a leash. Fat City is about people feeling sorry for themselves, and that's okay sometimes.

Columbia Tri-Star presents Fat City on a dual-layer DVD containing 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and matted versions of the film. Age-related dirt and haze mars several individual shots (never whole sequences), while the letterbox bands hug the top of the frame too tightly now and again, cropping heads in an indiscreet manner. Sound is Dolby 2.0 mono of adequate fidelity. Trailers for The Greatest (starring Muhammad Ali in his own premature biopic), xXx, and On the Waterfront round out the disc; there may not be enough here to recommend a casual purchase, but trust me when I say that Fat City is among The Essentials.-Bill Chambers

VISIT OUR 2002 DVD GIFT GUIDE FOR HOLIDAY SHOPPING IDEAS!