Breaking down John Cassavetes character in Mikey and Nicky
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Breaking down John Cassavetes’ character in ‘Mikey and Nicky’
Sun 25 February 2024 13:15, UK
While John Cassavetes is praised for his remarkable directorial contributions, including A Woman Under the Influence and Opening Night, it’s crucial to remember his acting brilliance, too. Around a decade after being nominated for the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Academy Award for his effort in The Dirty Dozen, Cassavetes gave another impressive performance in Elaine May’s 1976 crime drama Mikey and Nicky.
Cassavetes plays Nicky, a small-time criminal hunted down by the mob for playing them the wrong way. He calls upon his long-time friend, Peter Falk’s Mikey, to help him out of a jam once again, and what proceeds is an intense game of cat-and-mouse, plus an examination of the complexities of friendship and its fickle nature in the face of betrayal.
As a small-time criminal caught in the throes of desperate paranoia and the need for self-preservation, Cassavetes delivers a truly commendable performance, getting at the deeper nuances of a man on the run for his life. He’s defined by his behaviours that swing one way and then the other, all in the flash of a moment, disorientating audiences as to his trustworthiness.
There’s an energy in Nicky that is never seemingly satisfied as he makes his way across Philadelphia, and it’s this unpredictable nature that is offset by Mikey’s initial good intentions. One common response to a threat is to ridicule it, and after being soothed by Mikey in a hotel room, Nicky begins to display masculine bravado as though to impress his friend.
However, it’s clear that beneath this supposed irreverence for danger lies an insecure and vulnerable man. His bizarre outbursts of courage are suddenly replaced by moments of self-reflection, opening the possibility for redemption in the eyes of the audience, which never quite manages to arrive.
The truth is that Nicky comes across as a rather reprehensible character, one with no respect for his friends, his employers, or even his dead mother, as proven by a drunken scene at her grave. Somehow, though, becoming more dishevelled and desperate as the film rolls on and the mob hitman gets closer and closer – and as even Mikey’s loyalty to his old friend is tellingly thrown into doubt – Mikey can occasionally garner sympathy despite his reckless and self-destructive behaviour.
Cassavetes’s character is one with a complex humanity that never earns a total dismissal from audiences, although he comes mightily close with his treatment of women and people of colour. It’s that balancing act that provides Mikey and Nicky with its unwavering tension, an agitative mood that remains until Nicky meets his fate at the film’s conclusion.
It’s the chemistry with Peter Falk‘s Mikey that allows Cassavetes to display the finer nuances of Nicky, though. As the pair traverse their tumultuous past, we bear witness to what seems like genuine love and affection that can switch to resentment and hatred in the blink of an eye.
There’s also a loneliness in Nicky, as shown through his failed relationships with his wife Jan and mistress Kinney, that is never abated. Cassavetes displays this with the deep and forlorn look in his eyes, eyes that even question the loyalty of his best friend, Mikey, though with good reason.
Nicky is indeed a complex character, and he’s thankfully played by a master actor in Cassavetes. Haunted by past mistakes and unable to make them right, Nicky desperately clings to a sense of masculine bravado that can never cover the lonely and vulnerable cracks of his personality. He truly is a man on the verge of destruction.
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/john-cassavetes-character-mikey-and-nicky/