Steve Glassman
Ever wonder what would happen if you crossed Philip Roth with Elmore Leonard? This impressive crime debut may provide a hint. Long on back story, the saga of cop Eddie Perlmutter begins in a nineteenth century shtetl in Russia, where Eddie’s grandfather and the other villagers are prey to Cossaks and marauding bears. After demonstrating his courage by killing a bear with a sword, Grandpa heads off to Boston, where Eddie eventually becomes a cop and, though he doesn’t slay any bears, he demonstrates plenty of inherited courage. Retired to Boca Raton, the widowed, bunged-up Eddie busts a ring of Russian counterfeiters in a bare (albeit arthritic) knuckle encounter that earns the respect of the local police chief.
With a wink and nod, the top cop urges Eddie to take on the city’s toughest criminals in near-vigilante fashion. What results is an entertaining mix of comedy and drama as Eddie squares off with an an anti-Semitic hate group. Fortunately, Forman steers his geriatric hero clear of the buffoonery and sentimentality that often comes with the territory in this subgenre.
