Set in Park Slope, Brooklyn in those long ago and faraway days before yuppification gentrification and mansionization hit the now chi chi neighborhood Hal Ashby's directorial debut is a good but flawed film about black/white relations. It is best when dealing with Beau Bridges' privileged mama's boy meeting resistance, rejection, partial acceptance and finally salvation through his encounters with various African American denizens of a tenement he has inherited. It is weakest when dealing with the rich caucasian world which Bridges eventually renounces. Bill Gunn's screenplay and Ashby's direction seem to go out of their way to be nuanced and credible when dealing with poor blacks and, conversely, to be issued a caricature permission slip in their vision of rich whites. Through the inconsistencies, however, shine the performances of several actors, chief among them Diana Sands, Lee Grant, Lou Gosset, Pearl Bailey and Bridges back in the day when he was in an acting horse race with his kid brother. Give it a B minus.
Review of The Landlord
