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CURT SCHLEIER
Special to the Jewish News

2:00

A

film about a Mafia hit man
and his protege is not the
stuff Chasidic parables are
made of. But that's exactly
what guided actor-turned-director
Saul Rubinek when he made Jerry and
Tom, a film about two ordinary guys
who work for the mob. It premieres
on Showtime 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14.
Saul Rubinek? The name does not
flow from the lips of casting and film
directors in, say, the way Tom Cruise
and Kevin Costner do. Rubinek is a
character actor, with a face that
prompts film buffs to ask, "What did
we just see him in?" The list is long.
He's appeared in Unforgiven,
Nixon (as Kissinger) and
Wall Street and cur-
rently has a recur-
ring role in
Frasier as
Donnie
Douglas,
Daphne's
(Jane Leeves)
fiance.
He also
.
wrote the
So
Many
book

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11/12

1999

96

At the helm of his first feature film, character actor
Saul Rubinek drew upon his father's Chasidic
tradition of using parables to make a point.

World War II. The book became the
basis for a PBS documentary of the
same name.
Rubinek was born in a refugee
camp in 1948, and grew up in
Canada, where his parents immigrated
when he was just 1 year old. His
father, who was prominent in Poland's
Yiddish Theater, had been raised in a
Chasidic family but "broke away to
become an actor," Rubinek says.
"One of the things I remember
about [ferry and Tom's] release is that
people asked what a nice middle-class
Jew from Ottawa was doing with
Chicago hit men. But for me, this is
more of a parable. I drew upon my
father's Chasidic tradition of using
parables to make a point."
In Jerry and Tom, Joe
Mantegna plays an
average Joe
named Tom,
who works as
a used car
salesman.
Tom
just hap-
pens to
double
as a hit
man,
and when
Jerry (Sam
Rockwell), a
co-worker on
the lot,
expresses inter-
est in the profes-
sion, Tom takes
him under his
well-armed wings.
As Jerry's profes- •
sionalism grows, so
does his blood lust,
in a film that
is alter-
nate-

Saul Rubinek: wanted to :
do a film where there are
consequences to violence, the
hit men aren't so good looking
and there is a moral center."