PREMIERE.COM REVIEW (posted 4/4/03)

Soon after September 11, several critics discussed how the events that unfolded that day felt like scenes out of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. It's ironic, then, that the first American fictional film released dealing solely with the catastrophe hardly feels like a movie at all. Most of The Guys is set in a Brooklyn kitchen, the dialogue contains long speeches, and the nonkinetic camerawork is stagy and unnoticeable. This is no surprise, however, considering that the film is based on the play Simpson (Weaver's husband) produced at the Flea Theater, which is only blocks away from Ground Zero.

LaPaglia is a fire captain who has the morbid task of giving eulogies for the eight men he lost at the World Trade Center. Through an acquaintance, he is introduced to a journalist (Weaver) who eventually helps him articulate what made the fallen firefighters unique and revered by their peers.

The Guys is not exploitative (there are no images of the planes or the towers falling), nor is it a love letter to New York City or the United States — though the first dialogue heard is the eloquently put "New York, my beautiful, gleaming, wounded city." It is simply a story about two very different people who find in each other some much-needed strength and understanding. That may make the movie sound overly sentimental (which it often is), but it is safe to say that sentimentality will be a huge factor in whether or not one sees this film. And with regard to the subject matter that ultimately brought about its existence, that's more than fitting.

— Jason Matloff

Days after September 11, 2001, journalist Anne Nelson was introduced to a weary fire captain who'd lost a number of his men and needed help with the daunting task of writing their eulogies. "Language had to be used — like everything else in the situation — to do the right thing," she says. A few weeks later, she met Jim Simpson, artistic director and founder of the Flea Theater (located blocks from Ground Zero), and created a play for him based on her experience. "I got [the play] in an e-mail," says Simpson, "and pretty much fell apart."

The Guys became a groundbreaking production for the theater, with actors such as Sigourney Weaver (Simpson's wife), Bill Murray, Anthony LaPaglia, and Susan Sarandon taking turns as the leads. Hitting cinemas now is the play's screen adaptation, which was directed by Simpson, who shares a screenplay credit with Nelson, and features Weaver as the Upper West Side writer and LaPaglia as the stoic fire captain. Together, they craft eulogies that are heroic and yet very human, based on some of the real-life firefighters who were killed. "I think that it allows you to understand who actually was there," says Simpson, "and to miss them very sweetly." (Focus Features)