State of Grace

Director: Phil Joanou

1990 / 134min / 4K DCP

“His technique was almost invisible—you couldn’t even figure out if there was one… He understood everything about Jackie, how he’d behave and speak and move.” So said director Joanou of Gary Oldman’s loose-cannon performance in State of Grace, the actor’s US breakthrough, an inspired neo-noir that follows Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) on his return to Irish American Hell’s Kitchen after a long absence—unbeknownst to friends and neighbors now an undercover cop trying to take down a criminal organization whose members include Oldman’s Jackie Flannery and his elder brother, Frank (Ed Harris). Fervent admirers of Oldman’s work here include critic Roger Ebert, who praised “the twisted vision of [his] character, who lives in a world of evil and betrayal and has somehow thought himself around to the notion that he is doing the right thing,” and Leonardo DiCaprio, who stated that Oldman’s Jackie “influenced an entire generation of actors.”

Distributor: Park Circus

Part of Gary Oldman: The Protean Man