God’s Pocket: The Wronger Side of the Tracks

There are an inordinate number of disappointments to be found in God’s Pocket. The most significant is that such a shapeless, clumsy work is the feature film debut of John Slattery. The actor-director is most renowned for his portrayal of quip-dispensing rascal Roger Sterling on Mad Men, but Slattery is also one of the show’s deftest directors, helming peerless episodes such as “The Rejected” and “Signal 30”. God’s Pocket, unfortunately, is full of the narrative meandering and tonal awkwardness that betray a directorial fumble.

Set in a seedy Philadelphia neighborhood in the early 1980s, the film concerns the murder of Leon (Caleb Landry Jones), a skinny psychopath so detestable that a fed-up coworker bashes in the kid’s brains. Leon’s grieving mother Jeanie (Christina Hendricks) sees through the accident cover story, and urges her small-time hood of a husband Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to look into the matter. Regrettably, Slattery and co-writer Alex Metcalf can’t decide which subplots are worthy of focus, or even what kind of film they’re making. God’s Pocket most closely resembles a coal-black farce, but its repeated dithering with tragic portraiture and gritty naturalism leaves a confused impression.

It’s deflating that Hoffman’s unmemorable turn here is one of his final performances, and the wasted presences of Hendricks, John Turturro, Eddie Marsan, and Richard Jenkins are also letdowns. Certainly, the source material deserves better. God’s Pocket is adapted from the 1984 debut novel by newspaper columnist Peter Dexter, which drew upon his journalistic experiences, including a notorious 1981 assault. One of the film’s bright spots is Rochelle Berliner’s production design, which fantastically conveys the weary ugliness of Dexter’s Philly, recalling the Boston of Dennis Lehane (who reportedly cites God’s Pocket as an influence). It’s a shame that the film is otherwise such a muddle.