Over the course of the 97 minute film the two old friends duel over the fact that Harry is owed $500 by Jake, that Harry wants to hear encouraging words from Jake regarding his latest autobiographical novel about their friendship, and the romantic entanglements of the two men --  Jake’s with his wife Mavis (Ellen McElduff) and Harry with his long-time live-in girlfriend, Joanna (Susan Floyd). Mavis is a socialite who pays Jake $100 to sleep with her, and Joanna is a struggling sculptor who left the abusive Harry and now lives with a rich boyfriend in a penthouse.

Of the two female lead characters, Joanna is the more nuanced, and played quite well by the winsome Floyd, who exudes compassion and real depth beyond the clichés of the struggling artist.

At first Jake hides the manuscript in his freezer and denies he’s read it, but it becomes clear that he’s read it and resents the fact that Harry seemingly so aptly nails his character, even down to his sayings and mannerisms. By film’s end he claims Harry has ‘stolen his life,’ and that he should have had first crack at writing about it, since he’s always wanted to be a writer, but has never followed up on two early short stories he had published. He claims the book is ill written, and then says it’s trashy, and was designed just to make Harry money.

Harry, who’s down to his last buck and a half, perks up when Jake tells him the manuscript could be Harry’s ticket to big money. Harry takes the claim of the book’s sales potential to equate with its literary merit.

There are many nuanced moments, and the interactions between Pacino and Orbach are, at times, sensational. Some critics claim that the dialogue is too stagy, but this is false, especially to anyone who’s ever known artiste types, especially the Greenwich Village variety. They are spot on, for to be an artiste, by definition, means one is always playing a part.

Case in point is the scene where, about forty minutes into the film, the first sign of Jake’s real reason to be angry over the manuscript surfaces. Harry says, re: compromise, "Once you start you inevitably turn to phlegm," and Jake rages that that was a favorite saying of his two years earlier, and that Harry has no right to appropriate his words.