(2 of 2)
As always, the acting is superlative. Gazzara's Cosmo catches all the paradoxes and puzzles of the character, the wired ambition and the rapture over doom. Cassavetes' hoodlums, notably Seymour Cassel, are all unfailingly polite. The one exception is Timothy Carey as a fang-toothed, philosophical hood who eats dinner wearing white gloves and likes to quote the great thinkers. Cassel is curious about why Carey declines to fulfill his assignment and kill Gazzara. Carey curls his lips over his gums, lets a little foam drip, and says, "Like Karl Marx said: opium is the religion of the people." From him, that is sufficient explanation. No one would dare ask further questions.