Who’s That Knocking at My Door

Martin Scorsese’s directorial debut, Who’s That Knocking at My Door follows Harvey Keitel’s J.R. as he meets and falls for a local girl (Zina Bethune) and eventually asks her to marry him – with a tragic revelation from said girl’s past throwing J.R. for a loop and causing him to question the entire relationship. There’s ultimately no mistaking Who’s That Knocking at My Door for anything other than a low-rent and hopelessly uninvolving first feature, as writer/director Scorsese delivers a narrative that’s almost oppressively light on substance – with the bulk of the proceedings detailing J.R.’s aggressively meandering exploits alongside Bethune’s character and a host of rough-around-the-edges male friends. It’s clear virtually from the get-go that the scenes between Keitel and Bethune’s respective figures suffer from the actors’ palpable lack of chemistry together, and it doesn’t help, certainly, that Scorsese’s screenplay is heavy on meaningless small-talk dialogue that drains the energy out of the proceedings on a consistent basis. And although the first-time filmmaker has peppered the movie with a small handful of appreciatively stylish sequences (eg J.R. and his buddies’ slow-motion rough-housing), Who’s That Knocking at My Door is simply (and finally) unable to wholeheartedly establish itself as more than just a run-of-the-mill, far-from-accomplished student film.

* out of ****