I've read some reviews calling it disorganized or expressing some variation of the claim that it's only worth watching for Danny DeVito's performance. Maybe I haven't seen enough 70s dramas, but I found the movie fresh, entertaining, and well-made.
It's about a one Italian-American George, who's about to turn 30 and comes from a rather strict Italian-American household.
This guy is as lame as his monk haircut implies. He's homely, he's short, he's shy, he's afraid of other men, and everybody cows him into doing stuff. He's never done anything he could be proud of in his life because of his meek personality. While there's some woman he sleeps with, it's not clear if she's just a prostitute he's a regular customer of or what.
By some stroke of luck some cool man about town takes an interest in him at a bar and decides to talk at him while Georgie fidgets around nervously. Georgie boy decides to go out on a limb and take him up on some invitation to go to an audition for a play he's producing, where he meets a beautiful waitress who decides to give him a chance.
It's a little bit chaotic and it has a lot of dead ends, but it never abandons its identity as a poignant character study about this generic loser who's not going to amount to anything in life. In fact, he's such a loser that even when good things fall into his lap he can't pull the trigger. It's like watching the proverbial lemming leap to its death off of a cliff.
Danny DeVito is briefly in this movie, but who cares. He doesn't do much other than make salacious facial expressions at the camera. If you really want to see 70s DeVito, go watch Taxi (1978). That show is great.
Good, well-acted character study with a superb ending and a fascinating scenes of urban life in the 70s in USA.
Honourable Mentions: Marty (1955). Probably the best movie on the topic of frustrated sexually unlucky young man who becomes painfully aware of his stuation and prospects on the brink of middle age.
