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Review: Martin Landau and Paul Sorvino in ‘Abe and Phil’s Last Poker Game’

From left, Paul Sorvino, Martin Landau and Maria Dizzia in "Abe and Phil's Last Poker Game."Credit...Gravitas Ventures
Abe & Phil's Last Poker Game
Directed by Howard Weiner
Comedy, Drama
R
1h 25m

Reviewing a film after its lead actor’s death is grim even when the movie is good. The best that might be said about “Abe and Phil’s Last Poker Game,” starring Martin Landau, who died in July, is that it might lead viewers to “North by Northwest” or “Ed Wood.”

Mr. Landau plays Abe, a physician who moves into a nursing home with his deteriorating wife (Ann Marie Shea), an experience he finds humiliating. (In a tiresome motif, he insists on being addressed as “doctor,” not “mister.”) But Abe becomes fast friends with Phil (Paul Sorvino). Each might be the biological father of a nurse (Maria Dizzia) who knows only that her mystery dad lives at the home.

“Abe and Phil’s” is the first fiction feature from its writer and director, Howard L. Weiner, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School who founded a center for multiple sclerosis. That’s noble work, and knowing of it provides context for the movie. The medical tidbits, however awkwardly presented, are the most distinctive aspects of the script. The flat direction, alas, is not the work of a filmmaker.

The surprisingly many scenes devoted to Abe and Phil’s discussions of their potency (and their efforts to reignite it) mostly just play as embarrassing. The emphasis on the physical tolls of aging might be excused as a bold confrontation of tough truths. It’s as difficult to begrudge Dr. Weiner that effort as it is to watch the results.

Rated R. Late-life libidos. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Abe and Phil’s Last Poker Game. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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