Fading Gigolo, John Tuturro, 2014
By Ali Tenenbaum
It’s a Woody Allen movie. Wait, no it’s not, but the three ring Hasidic circus and the jazz sure make it feel like one. Woody Allen plays a man who has to close his bookstore and John Tuturro is his employee that will need to replace that income somehow. Woody devises a scheme to get into the sex business (yes, an BIZARRE role at this point in time for him) where Tuturro is the gigolo and Woody is his pimp. The two become an unlikely, successful, sex-scheming pair until the controlling but well meaning young Hasidic community cop gets wind of it all. Sex, chaos, romance and shenanigans ensue, especially when Woody is hauled off to the Hasidic court chamber where Mo, Larry and Curly interrogate him Monty Python style. It’s hard out there for a pimp! This is a small silly movie but it’s likeable. And gap toothed Vanessa Paradis as a Hasid is worth every penny.
No kids. Grandma will get a big kick out of it, especially she happens to be Jewish.
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