A dour character study featuring what may very well be Harvey Keitel's best performance. Keitel is a would-be concert pianist torn between the world of art and crime. His institutionalized mother wants him to play Carnegie Hall, while his father, a low-life Mafioso, wants him to continue as his bag man. Keitel's performance here is ferocious. He's sensitive and clearly artistic while at the same time ruthlessly (and violently) loyal to his father. In the end, all he wants is love and without it he can't respond to anything or anyone, including his would-be girlfriend (Tisa Farrow). Writer-director James Toback has had a spotty directing career over the years and has yet to fulfill the promise he displays here. Though there's limited action and only a few (brutal) spurts of violence, FINGERS is extremely exciting, harnessed by Keitel's brilliance. The strong supporting cast includes Michael V. Gazzo as Keitel's father, Jim Brown as a very nasty pimp, Danny Aiello, Marian Seldes, Tanya Roberts and Dominic Chianese in a very unlikely role. Filmed in New York with great cinematography by Michael Chapman.

Well, Reservoir Dogs fans, if you've been wondering really where the film is where Mr. White plays Mr. Blonde, this might be it. Only don't expect the same form of psychopathic behavior. Keitel's Jimmy Fingers is a sort of time bomb at times needing to be either detonated or waiting to be set off, and there's even an echo too (or rather the other movie is an echo of this) in Do the Right Thing. But James Toback's script is very particular about his various, half annoying half dangerous tendencies carrying around a radio and a knack for classical music and grit. And Keitel moves in this world like a man so within his own mind that the only way he can act sometimes is in bottling it up before it comes out. It's a very tough performance to pull off, as there's more fascination in what the character completely lacks than in his virtues. It's sometimes teeters even on becoming very uncomfortable to sit through, just in the psychological sense. We may not hate Jimmy Fingers, but he can test patience like it's nothing.Still, Keitel makes it such a character of idiosyncrasies and at the same time a weird kind of charm that at first sort of reminded me of his debut in Who's That Knocking at My Door. He's aiming for concert pianist, of the level on Carnegie Hall standards. But his father also has him collecting/making bets, and thus getting into things of a sometimes violent and ugly nature. And there's always that radio, blasting out the 'golden oldies' of the kind they used to play on CBS FM in New York. There's even a touch of the Brando-type character in Keitel's mood and mannerisms at times, plus that compulsory sexual nature with women. Towards the end of the film this becomes almost too perverse to handle, and Toback always deals with such dicey material head-on, without pulling any tricks with the camera (in fact, he only so occasionally moves it). While the filmmaker tests the waters with possibly become unnerving and off-its-hinges with watching such unconventional material, more or less he pulls off what he wants, and Keitel is a force to be reckoned with as an actor here. He may lack the realistic volcanic force and wit of a Mr. White, but the not-totally-sadistic Mr. Blonde comes out with just a great hint of the obsessed artist in there too (and what great music there is).In terms of referring to the 2005 French remake, the Beat That My Heart Skipped, I found that it might be one of those rare cases where the remake does out-do the original, at least in terms of dramatic involvement and in really getting more into the relationship between the father and son (plus there was more ambiguity in terms of the young man's mind state in the French version). But Fingers still holds its own decades later by standing out in the crime genre of the period, and it's up there in Keitel's underrated cannon of work.

Martin Scorsese' "Taxi Driver" is often touted as the great film to go into the mind of a disturbed and violent new yorker on the verge of psychosis. I believed that until i saw James Toback's "fingers".Honestly fingers does what taxi driver tried to do, but in a much much better fashion ! Fingers is far more textured than taxi driver. The characters are more 3 dimensional and its a far more acute representation of a man on the edge. Harvey Keitels interpretation of such a character makes de niros interpretation of travis bickle look shallow, insipid and flat. In terms of cinematography Fingers looks better, is edited better, is shot better and the acting is much more believable. fingers just has a lot more 'substance' to it - that great abstract thing that great films have.Unbelievable that this film scores only a 6.6 at this website. I voted it a 9/10.

Harvey Keitel indeed does his best work here, as lil' Jimmy "Fingers", a prodigy concert pianist turned debt collector, who works for his domineering father. Shot in cruel hues by cinematographer Michael Chapman, and excellently directed by the obsessive James Toback, this film is a rare gem of a find. Even football great Jim Brown has never been better. And you know what, this is one of Jean-Luc Goddard's favourite movies of all time!! Enough said.