I always needed at least a bit of narrative drive in a film. This has virtually none, despite a promising plot. Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) owner of a strip club (possibly the worst strip club ever) has just paid off his last set of gambling debts to a loan shark and celebrates by going gambling. to pay off that set of debts he eventually agrees to murder a Chinese bookie for the hoodlums to whom he owes the debt. He murders the target half way through the film, who turns out to be a bigger fry than just a bookie, and then realises he's been set up by the hoodlums.<br /><br />John Cassavetes, however, decided to concentrate on the characters rather than the action so you see lots of interactions between Vitelli, his girls and the gangsters and lots of shots of Vitelli thinking. The only action point is the actual murder.<br /><br />I understand that audiences stormed out of the cinema during and after the film during a couple of initial screenings when the film was finished. As a result Cassavetes cut the film by half an hour, to a still mind-numbing 109 minutes, but it didn't get a theatrical release. It was only shown on video after his death and has slowly become regarded as an avant-garde, character driven, masterpiece.<br /><br />I'm afraid, however, that I agree with the initial audiences. The film has no pace. It is dull. Even as a character piece it fails. Gazzara is good as Vitelli and the gangsters are well acted. However, the girls are pastiche and the film's view of them is horribly dated.