Stumblebum

MANGLEHORN (B) -  David Gordon Green gets high to make a film, and Al Pacino goes along with it.

Pacino plays a spacy septuagenarian locksmith in New York, mumbling, fumbling and stumbling around as A.J. Manglehorn, an oddball who hasn't quite lost all of his charm. He must have been quite charming (and certainly more hopeful) when he lost Clara, the apparent love of his life, who is memorialized by a roomful of postal offerings marked "Return to Sender" and spanning decades.

Green, who last charmed us with "Prince Avalanche" (and an offbeat lead character played by the smooth Paul Rudd), adores the creation of new writer Paul Logan (who was a driver on the previous film) and indulges both character and actor. Pacino rises -- or descends -- to the challenge. (He's been on a roll with grumpy and grizzled geezers of late, in "Danny Collins" and "The Humbling.") He evokes pathos but is never mawkish or hammy. He finds subtle tics to make the role genuine; for instance, he flicks his eyebrows up in order to make his reading glasses flop down from his forehead to the bridge of his nose. He casually inhabits the character to such an extent that it's almost possible to forget that it's Pacino up there on the screen.)

Besides pining for the elusive Clara, Manglehorn dotes on his cat, Fanny, who has been sickened because she swallowed an object (it's not difficult to guess what that object is). With Fanny at the vet for a week recovering from surgery, Manglehorn is particularly discombobulated. His weekly visits with his favorite teller at the bank, Dawn (Holly Hunter), result in a date, which our hero badly mangles, complete with a klutzy move at her apartment.

Manglehorn also must deal with his son, a childhood dweeb who grew up to become a big-shot commodities trader. The two scenes between father and son (Chris Messina) suffer from some shorthand storytelling (Green's only serious misstep), but Pacino shines during the dinner scene at the snooty restaurant (Manglehorn prefers pancake jamborees, with extra bacon). But the shift in the dynamics of their relationship at the end feels forced.

The son, Jacob, must compete for his father's attention with the skeevy childhood classmate, Gary (Harmony Korine), who now runs a "tanning" parlor in Manglehorn's neighborhood, and tries to corrupt the old man with various entreaties to party. It is in these scenes that Manglehorn's apparently increasing disorientation is most apparent. Green is at his trippiest while playing with focus and scattering sounds to display this confusion and frustration.

Will Fanny recover? Will Clara surface? How will Manglehorn reconcile his relationships with Dawn, Jacob and Gary? Is he losing his marbles? Or is he just incorrigible? Green's talents take a thin concept and manages at times to make it all seem profound.