So they asked Al Pacino if he wanted to play a locksmith and he said: “Sure – I’ll make it low key.” The great man indeed takes it down a few notches in this gentle, oddball character study of a Texas small-town resident moping doggedly for a lost love. It’s hard to entirely buy his Manglehorn, though. With his waistcoat, fob watch and long, greasy hair, you can’t see Pacino as an ex-Little League coach; lording it over an East Village drama workshop, possibly.
Director David Gordon Green is a frustratingly erratic talent: this is one of his more serious films, close to his recent Nicolas Cage vehicle, Joe. It drifts at its own sweet pace, but eccentric, impressionistic editing muddies the water. It’s nice to catch a rare sighting of Holly Hunter, although she’s mainly required to look fed up while Pacino rambles away at her across a dinner table. Art-fringe provoc-auteur Harmony Korine babbles manically as a local sleazeball; Pacino responds with an indulgent look, as if to say: “You’ll learn, kid.”
