DELI MAN
Cohen Media Group
Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: A-
Director: Erik Greenberg Anjou
Cast: Fyvush Finkel, Jerry Stiller, Larry King, Ziggy Gruber
Screened at: Cohen Media Group, NYC, 2/11/15
Opens: March 6, 2015
I’m taking this group tour in Ireland some two decades ago, and I introduce myself to fellow tourists, who are all Irish-Americans. Says one: “You’re a dentist, or maybe a teacher. Right?” I felt like saying, “Does it show? It’s that obvious?” But before I could finish my thoughts, this guy, Donovan I think, adds, “Hey, did you check out the deli on the corner?” I could asked him whether he “checked out” the four pubs on the block, but why antagonize your fellows so early in the trip? Some Christians believe that Jews know nothing about food outside of pastrami, tongue and corned beef.
Though there are delis that are run by Jews according to the Eastern European-derived traditional meats whether kosher or not, and delis run by Christians, which might more accurately be called delicatessens or even bodegas, there is no comparison between the two. Since Jews are the most generous people on this earth, you can expect the Jewish deli man to come out with sandwiches so large that, in the opinion of one guy in “Deli Man,” “You need a jaw adjustment when you’re through.” I wouldn’t, since there’s no way I would eat a corned beef rye or pastrami on club without taking apart the contents and slathering the meat across my plate. But then, I realize I’d be missing half the fun while retaining all the heartburn.
There would be no movie without the deli man, Ziggy Gruber, a charismatic, appropriately plump and friendly chef-owner of Kenny and Ziggi’s, perhaps the country’s largest Jewish delicatessen, which is located in Houston. Houston? Yep. As we’re told, many people think there is nobody of the Hebrew persuasion in the South outside of Miami, but that there were more Jewish generals in the Confederacy than in the Union Army. When Ziggy is not rolling kreplach, painting schmaltz on the chicken, slicing the tongue, embracing his mostly Hispanic workers or chatting up the customers, he narrates the deli tale from both a micro and a macro view. He shows us the obligatory pictures of the Lower East Side in the good old days of the early 1900’s and ever earlier, when hot dogs were two cents and there were literally thousands of delis across the country. Huh? Our population is now 317 million and the deli figure went from thousands to, now, one hundred fifty nationwide? Ziggy does not quite explain why but we can assume the party poopers have been the food police telling us to avoid fatty meats, avoid excessive consumption of red meats in general, and the move of so many Members of the Tribe to the ‘burbs where presumably the coffee-house pastrami would taste like the deracinated kind served at the Subways chain.
We get to know Ziggy well enough to wish him Mazel Tov at his wedding where, to walk in the footsteps of his beloved grandfather who got him started in the biz he took his bride, Mary (a doctor of Chinese medicine who relieves his stress with acupuncture and foot massage), to Budapest to a gorgeous synagogue, breaking the traditional glass amid the mellifluous voices of the cantor.
Now and then the subtitles tell any in the young audience who may not even know that they’re Jewish what the words mean. They include kishkes, kasha, mitzvah, schlep, but not even an oy. Interview subjects who pop up whenever Ziggy stops to take a breath include Larry King, Fyvush Finkel, Jerry Stiller, and Alan Dershowitz.
Delis which are covered include stores in New York like 2nd Avenue Deli, Carnegie, Katz’s, Nate ‘n’ Al, and restaurants in Toronto like Caplansky’s and Wise Son’s in San Francisco. Erik Greenberg Anjou, who remained hungry in the director’s chair, has provided us with a trilogy of Judaica, including “A Cantor’s Tale,” which is a meditation on the men who sing at synagogue services, and “The Klezmatics—On Holy Ground,” which deals with the Anjou’s four-year travels with a Klezmer group where a Quaker bassist and Reform Jewish trumpeter play, where Yiddish language is de rigeuer as are Hasidic dance and gospel music.
Rated PG-13. 91 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – A-
Acting – B+
Technical – B+
Overall – A-
