Having spent five years in prison as an innocent man, Billy (Vincent Gallo) one day suddenly finds himself out on the street in the depressing surroundings of Buffalo in the winter. When he wanders through a dancing class, looking for a toilet, he picks up the dancer Layla (Christina Ricci). He persuades her to go with him to his parents and to pretend to be his wife. To his surprise she agrees and plays her role convincingly. His parents are crazy about her – but not about him. Even if that was not Billy’s intention at all, Layla falls in love with him. Billy mainly dreams of getting his own back on the man he considers responsible for his time in jail. He comes from a whole family of fanatical American-football supporters. He was jailed at the time after he had placed a huge bet on the Buffalo Bills to win the Superbowl. But the kicker of the Bulls missed a crucial kick. To pay off his debt to the bookmaker, Billy took the blame for a crime committed by one of his mates.The directing début of Vincent Gallo, best known as an actor, is reminiscent of the work of Cassavetes: Gallo gives his actors (and they are hardly minor names) all the space they want, e.g. in some fine monologues. Some scenes are comic shorts in themselves, for instance when Billy goes looking for a decent place for a pee.
