Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on various players.
It’s easy for me to forget sometimes just how versatile an actor Harvey Keitel really is. When I think of him, I’m compelled to think of films like Pulp Fiction or Bad Lieutenant, and I forget that he’s a really capable actor in a lot of other, far less violent roles. He’s the central character in Wayne Wang’s and Paul Auster’s slice-of-life dramedy Smoke, which centers on a tobacconist on a street corner in New York. We interact with the lives of the owner and with a number of the customers as they attempt to survive and find meaning in what the world presents to them.
The New York smoke shop is home to Augustus “Auggie” Wren (Keitel), and the bulk of his clients are locals. One of these is Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), a formerly successful writer going through a permanent dry spell. We learn that a few years before, Paul’s wife was gunned down as a bystander during a bank heist, and he stopped writing. One day after buying his cigars, he almost walks into the street in front of a truck, but is pulled back by a young man who calls himself Rasheed (Harold Perrineau). Paul believes the young man to be homeless and offers him a place to stay, which Rasheed takes him up on a few days later.
