Chinese Coffee

"There's a fine line between friendship and betrayal."

2000 1h 39m EN

👍

6.8

SOLID

★6.8TMDB · 72

Drama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.

“There's a fine line between friendship and betrayal.”

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Cast

Al Pacino
Harry Levine
Jerry Orbach
Jake Manheim
Susan Floyd
Joanna
Ellen McElduff
Mavis
Michel Moinot
Maurice
Judette Jones
Supermarket cashier
Paul J.Q. Lee
Counterman
Joel Eidelsberg
Harry's Brother

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Al Pacino
Writers: Ira Lewis
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

26 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Al Pacino, shot by Frank Prinzi. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Elmer Bernstein. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Noah Herzog shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach and Susan Floyd carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "There's a fine line between friendship and betrayal.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0118852 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

Only 72 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Al Pacino directs. Frank Prinzi behind the camera. Elmer Bernstein scores. Noah Herzog cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

126 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
2Directed by Al Pacino, shot by Frank Prinzi. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Elmer Bernstein. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Editor Noah Herzog shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach and Susan Floyd carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "There's a fine line between friendship and betrayal.".
7IMDB entry: tt0118852 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Only 72 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
9Classified under 8 themes, including "new york city", "friendship", "jealousy", "photographer".

The technical file

Cinematography: Frank Prinzi
Original score: Elmer Bernstein
Editing: Noah Herzog
Production design: Wing Lee
Costume design: Franne Lee
Makeup / hair: Scott Hersh
Sound: Tom Fleischman
Runtime: 99 min · 1h 39m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Chinese Coffee (2000)

Also by

Al Pacino

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

tmdb280390232022-09-10
★ 6/10
In Carlito's Way, Al Pacino warns us that “a favor’s gonna kill you faster than a bullet.” In Chinese Coffee (2000) we see what he meant by that. Harry Levine (Pacino) and Jake Manheim (Jerry Orbach), whose friendship seems to illustrate that misery loves company, have exchanged favors; Harry loaned Jake $500 to buy photographic equipment, and Jake said he would read Harry's manuscript. Jake, however, has no money to pay the strapped-for-cash Harry back (both are starving artists at an age when this lifestyle has long since ceased to be a voluntary choice and has become "nothing but a long history of failure."), and claims to have not read Harry’s manuscript; in fact, he has stashed the pages in the freezer like a piece of raw meat – there is something in them he finds hard to swallow, let alone digest, because to him it would be not unlike to anthropophagy. The subject of an artist cannibalizing the experiences of someone close to them is common; in the last couple of years alone we’ve had, with varying degrees of success, Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk and Sam Levinson’s Malcolm & Marie. This material, that essentially comes down to verbal fencing, behooves from a spare setting and cast – which is why Malcolm & Marie succeeded where Let Them All Talk failed; the former is an original screenplay by Levinson, but it would easily feel at home on Broadway. Chinese Coffee, adapted by Ira Lewis from his one-act play of the same name, is even more austere, taking place mostly in an apartment described as “stifling”, “thick” and “dense”, and whose windows are bolted shut. Pacino – who starred in the original stage production and directed the film adaptation – and Lewis know their stuff inside and out, and the result is lean and tight; at the same time, they wisely take advantage of the freedom afforded them by the medium of film to relieve the claustrophobia of the main set, which they leave from time to time, to visit, usually in flashback, more open spaces – unlike the play, where all the action takes place in a small apartment in Greenwich Village (at other times, however, the film simply swaps one cubbyhole for another; specifically, the basement Harry shared with his ex Joanna (Susa Floyd).

Production companies