Boring, long, and too preachy.

Absolutely brilliant

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Getting back into watching TV shows, (with the jet-black BBC Comedy series Fleabag being the most recent great discovery)I decided to take a look at the shows on Netflix UK.As I checked up on the TV section,I stumbled on a movie that I had received high praise in a review on IMDb's Film Noir board, which led to me getting ready to trade things in with the pawnbroker.The plot:Since seeing the rest of his family killed in a concentration camp, Sol Nazerman (the only member of the family to not be killed in the camp) has closed himself off to the rest of the world,with the brief glimpses to the numbers on his arm bringing memories back to Nazerman that he tries to keep repressed. Working in a pawn shop used by gangster Rodriguez as a front for money laundering, Nazerman spends each day meeting the "Rejects" and "Scum" of society.Joining the pawnbrokers, Jesus Ortiz looks up to Nazerman,but is hurt by the fist Nazerman breaks his attempt at friendship with. As local social worker Marilyn Birchfield attempts to get Nazerman to let his guard down a bit, Ortiz decides to break the pawnbroker.View on the film:Mostly filmed at real locations (including a pawnshop at 1642 Park Avenue) director Sidney Lumet (who took over after Arthur Hiller got sacked,and Stanley Kubrick/Karel Reisz and Franco Zeffirelli all turned the project down) and cinematographer Boris Kaufman give the title an extraordinary grubby Film Noir atmosphere,with jagged wide track shots treading on all the rot and decay lining Nazerman's cold existence. Backed by the hard Funk of Quincy Jones,Lumet,Kaufman and editor Ralph Rosenblum display a masterful sense of collaboration. Digging into Nazerman's repressed memories,Lumet and Rosenblum's pin-sharp editing gradually brings the fragmented horrors that Nazerman faced into light,as the barrier put at the front of the shop places Nazerman in his self-imposed prison.Showing that he could do a role that Lumet was hoping to give to James Mason or Groucho Marx (!),Rod Steiger gives an incredible performance as Nazerman. Withholding everything apart from pure Film Noir vile for those he sees as the scum of society, Steiger incredibly keeps a vice like grip on Nazerman's repressed memories,which are treated with great psychological care by Steiger,whose wall of nihilism is built by Nazerman making all his other emotions dead to the world. Joined by some Blaxploitation jiving from Brock Peters smooth Rodriguez and the powerfully wounded Jaime Sánchez's take on Jesus Ortiz, Geraldine Fitzgerald gives a dazzling performance as Marilyn Birchfield,by stepping away from what could be big, emotional scenes,to instead give Birchfield's meetings with Nazerman a quiet, heartfelt sincerity.Breaking the Production Code in bringing Edward Lewis Wallant's book to the screen,the screenplay by Morton S. Fine & David Friedkin superbly walks into the Film Noir wilderness of Nazerman's life with brittle dialogue that spills the coldness Nazerman views society in across the screen. Taking the rather unique decision to look at the Holocaust in a non-War movie,the writers study the lingering after effects of the atrocity on Nazerman,whose brief releasing of the withheld memories leads to Nazerman finally feeling the decades of emotions he has been keeping on the shelves of the pawnbrokers.

Oooph, this movie hurts.Film buffs can find evidence of schizophrenia in any movie decade, but perhaps none more so than in the 1950s and 1960s. It is nearly inconceivable to me that "The Pawnbroker" came out in the year that "The Sound of Music" won the Best Picture Academy Award. Don't get me wrong, I very much like "The Sound of Music" too, but it almost seems like it was made in a different century compared to this film.Rod Steiger was justly nominated for and wrongly lost the Academy Award for his performance in "The Pawnbroker," as a concentration camp survivor who has lost all faith in humanity and sees people as no more or less valuable than the possessions they come to him to pawn. The film was directed by Sidney Lumet, and it creates the same sweaty, grimy atmosphere that Lumet would occasionally revisit (like in his 1975 film "Dog Day Afternoon") and that Martin Scorsese made a career of throughout the 1970s. It's a bleak film, one that uses the horrors of the Holocaust to shape its main character's psyche without giving him or the audience any real hope for his future. It's a film that suggests that the Holocaust broke something fundamental in human nature that will never be repaired. It's a message at odds with so many films that try to find closure or hope or at the very least a lesson to be learned from such a dark chapter of history, and it makes "The Pawnbroker" feel years ahead of its time.The film is also trailblazing in its acknowledgement of blacks and homosexuals at a time when the former were the subject of mostly preachy white guilt movies that starred Sidney Poitier and the latter were not to be found in films pretty much anywhere. In "The Pawnbroker," both exist without commentary; they're just part of the world Rod Steiger's character lives in, as disenfranchised from the rest of humanity in their own way as he is. It's rather remarkable that the film includes so many black and gay characters without the film being ABOUT black and gay characters. The casual inclusion of them is a greater statement for the time than a movie about them would have been.This is by no means a pleasant film to watch, but it is an awfully good one, and one that may very well leave you shaken.Grade: A

A powerful but grim movie about a Harlem pawnbroker terrorized by memories of the Nazi death camps, this is an excellent drama enhanced by a brilliant cast, on-location shooting in New York and at the end, a surprisingly strong note of compassion. As the movie opens, we see Rod Steiger unwinding on a lawn chair in post-war Long Island, with its tidy homes and lawns. His sister in law tries to talk him into a trip to Europe but the morose Steiger has no use for a trip that would only remind him of the stench of death. He has flashbacks to the horrors he endured. These scenes continue to mar his life as we see men and women being brutalized and witness their barbed wired surroundings as prisoners of Nazi Germany. Steiger, as the death camp survivor, delivers a superb performance as the man haunted by the memories of his wife and children whose lives were cut short while he was spared, only to live with the bitterness that made his own life so sad. The customers at his pawn shop in Harlem get the cold, calculating treatment from this broken man as they try to cope with their own meagre means of subsistence. Geraldine Fitzgerald plays the role of a social worker who tries to befriend him and meets with the same cold shoulder. I have seen this actress in other movies but was never so impressed with her, as in this movie. Towards the end, Steiger turns to her for company and understanding, as he deals with the thugs he allows to use his shop for their own nefarious deeds in exchange for money. A young Puerto Rican assistant tries to learn the trade from his boss. Steiger takes the time to coach him and seems to get some satisfaction from this relationship. Only much later does he realize how much the assistant cared for him. The customers are mild, gentle people trying to eke out whatever they can get from this hard, bitter man. The film-making conveys great realism. We see Steiger walk through Times Square with the marquee for Leslie Caron in the L-Shaped Room, one of the movies of the time. We hear the rumble of the elevated train as it makes its way through the neighborhood. The character actors in supporting roles are excellent and add to the overall impact of this drama.This movie is not about the Holocaust as such, but the viewer can see the impact of the horrors on one man and how it affected his life and those around him. The emotional trauma did not allow him to respond to the acts of kindness that he received. Finally, he had to deal with one heroic deed that was completely unexpected. How he carried on, we cannot know but we can see that his world did not completely reject him, although he tried to reject it. We can understand that he is a victim of a great atrocity.This movie was directed by the recently-deceased Sidney Lumet, who even Martin Scorsese said was the quintessential New York director. This movie takes a universal theme and gives it a great backdrop. This is one of the finest, realist films I have ever seen. A highly personal encounter with a great tragedy.

The Pawnbroker is directed by Sidney Lumet, has a screenplay by William Friedkin and Morton S. Fine and stars Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters and Jamie Sanchez.The Pawnbroker's emotional impact cries out loudly demanding to be felt,seen and heard.It features Lumet's usual brand of blistering and gripping dialogue,as well as a breathtaking central performance by Rod Steiger.Released in 1964 this is one of the first mainstream films to deal with the Holocaust.It doesn't dwell on the physical horrors of the camps,instead it's a hard hitting look at the emotional horror and devastation inflicted upon the survivors of those terrible crimes.In particular it focuses on how such horrors can cause the individual sufferer to dispense with emotion and block out the memories of the event in question. This of course can in turn cause even greater damage.New York in the 60's finds Concentration Camp survivor Sol Nazerman(Rod Steiger)running a successful pawnshop business ably assisted by young hotshot Jesus Ortiz(Jaime Sanchez).Sol has no emotion to invest in any of his customers(many of whom have no one else to talk to and just come to his shop for any kind of human emotional connection)or friends.It is coming up to the 25th anniversary of his wife's death and he is besieged by terrible memories of that time as if they were happening again fresh and new.Due to the horrors he saw which includes the death of his entire family he has blocked out the memories as best he can and has no faith left in the human race.This blinds him to the goodness and hope that happens daily around him.It's up to youth worker Marilyn Birchfield(Geraldine Fitzgerald)to try and awaken his buried emotions and help him reconnect with the world.She strikes up a tender friendship with him and partly succeeds in making him take another look at his situation.However it really takes the tragic death of someone close to him to fully make him see what he has wasted and lost all these years.That is Sol's real tragedy he has squandered the precious gift of life and joy.However it makes the viewer think what would we do in his situation?Is coming back to normal life really that easy after experiencing such pain?no of course it's not, that just makes us empathise with his plight even more. One of the most disturbing,clever and memorable moments in the film is when Sol is on a subway train and a memory of being on a crowded transportation train heading to a camp comes to him and past and present blend into one big moment of horror and terror and he suffers a panic attack.Rod gives one of the best performances of his career and through his truthful performance we share Sol's pain,terror and panic and like Marilyn desperately want to help him try and function easier in life.There's fine support from Geraldine Fitzgerald as the kindhearted Marilyn, Brock Peters is excellent as a local gangster and Thelma Oliver makes an strong impression as Ortiz's girlfriend/prostitute.Emotionally devastating and shocking,The Pawnbroker is an underrated film dealing with themes of prejudice,sadness and horror which in some parts of the world still happens today(will some of us never learn from the horrors of World War Two?).Impressive,meaningful and deeply affecting The Pawnbroker is one to watch.