THE JEWISH ENSEMBLE THEATRE PRESENTS...
Jennifer Aniston
plays the wife of a
Detroit developer
in Life of Crime.
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ik
Suzanne Chessler
D
aniel Schechter's bookshelves
are filled with the mystery/
crime novels of the late Elmore
Leonard, but not one of the fictional char-
acters became an out-and-out hero for
Schechter.
His hero was the
man behind the
fiction: Schechter
increasingly came to
admire the skills of the
Bloomfield Township-
based novelist.
Schechter, who grew
Filmmaker
up knowing he wanted
Daniel
to work on the creative
Schechter
side of cinema, recently
realised a dream by
using his screenwriting and directo-
rial skills to turn a Leonard book into a
movie.
Life of Crime, adapted from 1978's The
Switch, opens Friday, Aug. 29, in Metro
Detroit.
The movie, a dark caper comedy,
captures the physical and emotional
jolts experienced by the kidnapped wife
(Jennifer Aniston) of a corrupt real estate
developer (Tim Robbins). Two criminals
(Yasiin Bey and John Hawkes) look for
ways to get money from the husband,
who refuses to pay ransom. Jewish actress
Isla Fisher and Will Forte co-star.
"I feel proud of the tone of the film,
which is not really a comedy although
it's funn y ; Schechter explains in a phone
conversation from his New York home.
"It's not really a drama because there's a
lot of humor.
"I think it's one of the most loyal adap-
tations of Elmore Leonard's books that
audiences have seen, and I think people
who have read the book would feel it was
the biggest influence on the movie itself'
Although the story takes place in 1970s
Detroit, it was filmed in Connecticut for
budget reasons.
The filmmaker, 32, was raised on
Long Island and studied film at Emerson
College in Boston. His earlier produc-
tions, including Goodbye Baby and
Supporting Characters, were made on a
much smaller scale.
"I took The Switch off my shelf and did
something reckless:' Schechter says. "I
wrote a script without anybody paying
or even asking me to write it. I wanted to
make the film so badly that I found and
begged the people who owned the mate-
rial to let me have the chance to do
Leonard, who died in 2013, invited
Schechter to spend a weekend in his
Michigan home to discuss filming possibil-
ities. Other movie adaptations of his works
include Get Shorty and 3:10 to Yuma.
"He was a very charming and funny
guy who knew how to get a laugh,"
Schechter says. "There were stories and
sound bites about movie adaptations that
he hated.
"His books are laugh-out-loud funny,
and I think the saddest thing about his
not living to see this film is how hard peo-
ple laugh at the jokes he wrote years ago.
"I like to think that everything I've
done with the movie could take place in
the real world. What Leonard did so well
involved grounding characters in reality
to make people buy into his far-fetched
premises7
Schechter visited Michigan this sum-
mer to experience the reaction to Life of
Crime at the Traverse City Film Festival.
Earlier, it had been shown at the Toronto
International Film Festival.
The screenwriter-director, a member of
his local Jewish community center, where
exercising remains a priority, has one
character mistaken for being Jewish as
part of the storyline that has a neo-Nazi
criminal.
"I had never seen neo-Nazi parapher-
nalia before working on this film, and
I certainly had never been in a room
surrounded by explains Schechter,
who portrayed the neo-Nazi as a dun-
derhead to be ridiculed and compares
his approach to that taken by Mel Brooks
with Nazi characters in The Producers.
Schechter, in a relationship with an
actress-producer, is working on another
book adaptation.
"I feel like the luckiest guy in the
world because I got to make this movie,"
he says. "I've felt honored to have
worked with Leonard's materiar
❑
Life of Crime is scheduled to
open Friday, Aug. 29.
• • • •
THE VALUE
OF NAMES
••
• • • •
Jewish filmmaker brings Detroit-set
caper to the big screen.
I Contributing Writer
••
• • • • • .9 • •
• • • •
• •
• •
BY JEFFREY SWEET
DIRECTED BY YOLANDA FLEISCHER
Time may not heal all wounds and certain actions can haunt one through
a lifetime. This tense but funny play features legendary Hollywood
director Leo Greshen, who denounced several of his contemporaries
before the House Un-American Activities Committee, including his
best friend, actor Benny Silverman.
Now it is 1983, and a retired Benny (who has recouped his fortunes)
still harbors his acute outrage over Leo's betrayal. Then Benny's daughter
Norma is cast in a play that Leo is directing! Old antagonists meet again
and it is a captivating clash of titans, sizzling with wit and bitterness.
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August 28 • 2014
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