I’m Not Rappaport (1996)

(On TV, December 2022) The nice thing about older Hollywood stars is that you can take in their complete career at a glance—the early movies are fun, sure, but what about the last few ones? Are the stars still playing to their persona, and is it still working? For Walter Matthau, the overview isn’t like most other cradle-to-grave stars—having made his entrance into showbiz relatively late in life and being blessed with a face that was more bulldog than matinee idol, he played titular Grumpy Old Men throughout his career. I’m Not Rappaport, one of his final film appearances, finds him co-starring with Ossie Davis and being as compelling a presence as in other roles. Here he plays an over-the-top confabulator, an opinionated socialist and rabble-rouser always eager to fast-talk his way through various issues. This exasperates Davis’s character, a more easygoing type who can’t quite get away from Matthau’s verbose hurricane. It doesn’t help that the protagonist keeps inventing grandiose stories that may or most likely are not true. Since director Herb Gardner is adapting his own theatrical play to the screen, you can expect the film to be heavily dialogue-based, with Matthau handling most of it. Various episodes are grafted onto the odd-couple dynamics at play, and they’re not all convincing: While the protagonist’s daughter coming around out of concern for her aging, tall-tale-telling father is interesting, the third-act emphasis on a rescue narrative for an abused woman is less credible—although it does end in a somewhat realistic fashion. Still, the spot light here is on Matthau, as likable and gruff as he’s been throughout most of his career. I’m Not Rappaport is not a great movie (in fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembers its twenty-five years later), but it’s a very nice showcase for Matthau and, in a less showy manner, Davis—and a somewhat better vehicle for Matthau than many of the other films he shot in his last two decades. It’s well worth a look if you’re going down Matthau’s filmography.