Movie Reviews by Edwin Jahiel

THE GIG (1985)

Written and directed by Frank D. Gilroy, this film is a true mainstream sleeper. A bunch of middle-aged friends who get together to play jazz get a real engagement in a Catskills resort. The bassist , sick, must have operation, can't go with the others. The drummer is a single dentist whose live-in mother has the usual maternal exigencies. Another is an employee whose wife goes alone to their usual Nantucket vacation. The trumpetist is employed by his wife's father. The trombonist and orgaizer of the gig (Wayne Rogers) is a car dealer with a wife and a mistress. The sax and clarinet man is a music teacher. Gilroy makes a whole of this motley crew, keeps the characters separate but equal, ranges over several emotions and developments in something of a tour-de-force. Predictable sometimes (but in a true to life fashion), in turns or at the same time amusing, funny, touching, this imaginative "little movie" has a lot going for it, includes touches of Neil Simon and Woody Allen. Overall delightful --as is the jazz in it. (Edwin Jahiel)