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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 98855
Released: August 8, 2000 |
| Our Price: $4.60 |
| Used Price: $1.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
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!
Description of Jerry and Tom:
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
Jerry and Tom Reviews:
Dark and funny but not quite great 
2007-12-28 - Worth seeing if just for Mantegna, who fairly knocks this one out of the park. He's fully believable in his role and brings much heart and humor to both the character and the movie. Everyone else is good as well, though Danson and Macy hardly deserve credit for two-minute roles.
The directing is quite excellent, sharp and mostly unobtrusive; the pans from one scene to the next are very interesting and add a lot to the film's meaning rather than just calling attention to themselves and the director.
I'd call this PrettyGoodFellas.
Not your usual kinda movie
2002-07-16 - This extra-quirky black comedy works by dint of its unpredictable dialogue and sudden deaths (so to speak--it's the tale of two suburban hit men), as well as some unusual moments--one of the guys, burying a body in the forest, stops to look at a doe, only a few yards away. In addition, the scene transitions are cleverly done, moving back and forth in time and season--summer changes to winter in a few seconds, taking maximum advantage of the film medium to segue based on a few small random items into a milieu that's completely different from the previous one.
The hit men are played by Joe Mantegna, one of the executive producers, and Sam Rockwell, and their boss is Canadian actor Maury Chaykin. All are effective in their darkly funny roles, as are Peter Riegert, William H. Macy, Ted Danson, and Charles Durning as an older hit man who taught Mantegna's Tom everything he knows. Durning's Vic also wants to publish a book about his life, using a "pseudoname"--which does not go over too well with others.
Hit men are not called that for nothing. With a used car lot as a front, these guys get down to business wherever they're needed--northern Wisconsin or central Florida. There's a peculiar, but definitely interesting, mix of the comic and the serious as one of the two guys talks about how his newborn baby won't stop screaming in the middle of the night, making him think about exercising his craft on a family member. Juxtapose this with the same guy repeatedly cursing a chainsaw that refuses to start and you have one heck of a goofy movie that does stuff no other film has done...or maybe, wants to do.
There are really no women in the film, save for a very brief scene with one of the two guy's wives, and she's sleeping. It's a guy film all the way and although it probably could have used more substance, it's very good for what it is.
See it if you want to watch something different, unusual, offbeat, occasionally funny, and occasionally very sharp indeed.
Interesting, but not really a point 
2001-09-07 - The movie was sort of interesting, but it didn't seem to have a point. I also didn't like the constant killings, even though they weren't actually shown. I wouldn't call it horrible, but I don't see a reason why anyone would want to see it. I don't even know why anyone bothered to make the movie.
Wry Black Comedy 
2001-02-23 - One has to have a morbid sense of humor to enjoy this wry black comedy about two used car salesmen who moonlight as contract killers. The comedy is very tongue in cheek as these two miscreants matter-of-factly whack a dozen or so marked men while bickering over trivialities.
The gag is funny at first, but wears thin as we are treated to minor variations on the same theme for an hour and a half. Other than some innovative scene transitions, the direction by veteran TV director Saul Rubinek was nothing special, except I suppose he made good use of a very limited budget. The story was taken from a play by Rick Cleveland, ("The West Wing" TV series) and Rubinek maintained the theatrical feel using simple sets and concentrating mainly on the actors.
Joe Mantegna is an excellent tough-guy character actor and conjures another terrific mobster. He is a hard but practical murderer who takes the task as strictly business and longs to get out of the game. Sam Rockwell is also good as his dim-witted cohort, who begins to like his work a bit too much. Charles Durning gives a droll performance as an over-the-hill hit man who wants to write a book about his targets. There are also cameos by William Macy, Ted Danson and Peter Riegert.
This is a better than average B movie with some acting performances that are worth seeing. I rated it a 6/10. It is funny in a perverse way, and Mantegna's performance is a treat.
A brilliant tale of two ordinary hit men. 
2000-07-01 - This is the movie that brings you into the world of the ordinary hit man -- well not the machine gun tottling Mafioso gunmen we're so used to watching in the big gangster movies. But the ordinary hit man who does his job as a necessary means to a living. The job is fine but there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The art of doing well is to kill with nonchalance. It is a hazardous occupation -- you go on as long as you can but don't know if you'll be a target yourself one day.
There are no fancy trenchcoats or big cigars. The hit men work as used car salesmen, wipe windows in the lot when free and pay for their own movie tickets. They supply their income by knocking off their assigned victims. A respectable year for Tom means usually getting about two to three contracts done. Young Jerry (Sam Rockwell) learns the ropes from Tom (Joe Mantegna) and witnesses his first murder in the front seat of a car. Jerry's induction is every bit as abhorrent as one would typically react to seeing a man killed. But he learns to like what he does and becomes as cold and merciless as his mentor is. In fact Jerry gets to be as ruthless as Tom, to the point that he even takes sadistic pleasure when whacking off his victims. Tom's professional detachment is his strength and hallmark. But this trait unfortunately is never learnt by his protégé and the latter's intractability proves to be his undoing.
Apart from a very entertaining script, what makes the movie an excellent watch is the top-notch performances from the cast, especially Joe Mantegna, Sam Rockwell, Maury Chaykin and Charles Durning. And of course the wonderful cameos by William Macy and Ted Danson. The brutality of the killings is shocking but any darkness in the movie is balanced by the humorous edge throughout. This is about ordinary hit men getting their contracts done. There are no recriminations and regrets. The movie starts and ends on a sardonic note, and it's a pity that its low budget nature probably stymied any commercial success.
