The Ref (1994)
Directed by Ted Demme
A cat burglar is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.
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What critics compared The Ref to
Director Ted Demme ("The Ref") attempts an epic in the style of Martin Scorsese's "Casino" but doesn't succeed.
Director Ted Demme worked with Leary on the film "The Ref." Demme does a good job making the story compelling, despite having to nail together story segments which take place over a span of many years.
Based on this real person's real life, director Ted Demme ("The Ref", 1994) and screenwriter David McKenna, using the book by Bruce Porter, take us through the man's life and career as he becomes the first to introduce cocaine to Hollywood's beautiful and rich, making himself ultra rich in the bargain.
"Blow" was directed by Ted Demme, which comes as a surprise, as Demme is otherwise known for little movies like the forgettable Eddie Murphy vehicle "Life", the so-so hostage comedy "The Ref" (which did feature Kevin Spacey as a disgruntled, wisecracking suburbian family man 5 years before American Beauty) and the little seen "Monument Avenue".
I’m not sure if that’s a testament to the no-nonsense performance by Swank or the script by writer/director Richard LaGravenese (he also wrote “ The Ref ,” one of this writer’s all-time favorite Christmas movies).
Writer-director Richard LaGravenese boasts a rather eclectic résumé of writing credits, which include "The Fisher King" (for which he was Oscar-nominated), "The Ref," "A Little Princess," and "The Mirror Has Two Faces."
But American Beauty encompasses all of those qualities combined, plus it's the funniest film about marital dysfunction I've seen since The Ref.
Spacey actually played a character very similar to Lester, back before fame, in a little seen The Ref.
He’s at least as good as he was five years earlier giving almost exactly the same performance in almost exactly the same role: Spacey’s character in the entertaining 1994 black comedy The Ref was named Lloyd and not Lester, and his wife was Caroline instead of Carolyn (!), but names aside, Lloyd and Lester are practically the same character: a quietly unhappy, emotionally withdrawn, passive-aggressive suburban husband and father, unloved and unrespected at home both by his estranged wife (who is in both movies unfaithful, shrewish, short-haired, and brunette) and by their disaffected teenage child; unappreciated and unrewarded professionally in his dead-end career; living a life of quiet desperation until a crisis spurs him to act out and demand to be taken seriously.