NY Daily News loves 'Off the Black'

Nolte and new director make 'Black' magic
By ELIZABETH WEITZMAN
DAILY NEWS WRITER

It's no insult to Nick Nolte to note that there are many moments in James Ponsoldt's "Off the Black" where we wonder if the craggy vet is actually acting.

As he guzzles beers and limps through life, Nolte's weary loner Ray Cook is as bitingly authentic as, well, Nolte's infamous mug shot. But make no mistake: This is the work of an expert - the sort of master craftsman who doesn't need to draw attention to his efforts.

The same could be said for the movie itself, which feels intimate, familiar and easy to overlook. That's part of its beauty. This modest tale of an overweight, over-the-hill baseball umpire who bonds with a resentful student is so deceptively understated, it could be the no-big-deal story of a neighbor you never really got to know.

After Nolte's Cook makes a controversial call at a high school game, a few of the players angrily vandalize his home. He catches Dave (Trevor Morgan), and makes him clean the place up. Tentatively, these two get to know each other, and start to form the family each desperately needs.

Cook hasn't seen his son in decades, and Dave's father (Timothy Hutton) has been an emotionally vacant zombie ever since his unfulfilled wife, Dave's mother, skipped town.

As good as Nolte is, the relatively unknown Morgan matches him scene for scene. And he's not the only impressive newcomer. Remarkably, this confident indie is the first feature from writer-director Ponsoldt, who shuns any slickness to embrace the rough edges of his low-budget, bare-bones story.

It would seem the director learned a few lessons from his unshakably iconoclastic star.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/478083p-402217c.html