Film / I'm Not Rappaport

"And you changed your name too."

Nat: Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard. Now you're old with a mustache.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, what happened to you? You used to dress up nice. Now you got old, dirty clothes.
Midge: I am not Rappaport.
Nat: And you changed your name too.

A 1996 American buddy Dramedy written and directed by Herb Gardner that has two elderly men (Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis) becoming unlikely friends and deal with the realities of getting older. It is based largely on the stage play previously created by Gardner.

The story focuses on two elderly gentleman, Nat Moyer and Midge Carter. Midge is a straight shooter who prefers a simple and uncomplicated life, while Nat is an old union and Communist rabblerouser who still hasn't given up the fight. Things begin complicated for Midge when one day Nat unexpectedly barges his way into his life.

The movie also stars Amy Irving, Craig T. Nelson, Martha Plimpton, Boyd Gaines, Ron Rifkin, and Guillermo Díaz.

It was released on December 24, 1996.

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Tropes for the film:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Nat Moyer's daughter, Clara, complains that he's been fighting the same battles for years. They talk about how she once fought for the cause too and was jailed for protesting and she says he'd be overjoyed if she was in jail right now. "Not overjoyed," he tells her. "Pleased, maybe." She starts chuckling, then asks why she's laughing.
• Adaptation Expansion: The original stage play is confined to a park and mostly focuses on the bench in that park where Nat and Midge talk to each other. The film is still mostly this, but adds a couple of scenes at the beginning that in the original play were only referenced by the other characters in passing. Specifically, a flashback scene in which Clara Lemlich calls for a strike and encourages the workers to swear the old Hebrew oath, and one set in the present day in which Nat pulls a Bavarian Fire Drill at a supermarket, pretending to be a representative of the United Consumers Protection Agency who is protecting customers from unfairly high prices.
• Appeal to Force: When Midge tells Nat to go away and get off his bench, Nat asks where it is that says that it's his, that he doesn't see a plaque. "It says right here," replies Midge, holding up his fists.
  Midge: You read them hands? Study them, boy. Them hands were Golden Gloves in the summer of 19 and 28. This is my spot.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: When a woman complains to Nat Moyer on the huge increase in price on a piece of meat from one week to the next at the grocery store, he goes back there with her. He claims to be an agent of the United Consumer Protection Agency, or UPCA (pronounced "ook-pah") established by the Mayor Advisory Council on Consumer Affairs and uses a pen to change the price on the tag. He soon has a large crowd of people clamoring around him to change their prices as well. When the managers at the store demand to speak with his supervisor, he gives them the number for his mother. When they put him on the phone with her and she tells him that it's the last call she's going to take from him about something like this, he hangs up the call. He then claims that he's been summoned to emergency elsewhere, leaving the store and shouting "Customers! Customers! Protest before you yourselves are consumed! Put down your shopping bags, abandon your carts, and pursue the prices you deserve!" Later deconstructed when it's revealed that this type of thing is something that Nat does regularly and it all tends to fall apart when people start to seriously question it in the aftermath.
• Beat: Nat and Midge declare that they're both in love with a beautiful girl that is at the park, painting. Midge says that it's the first time he's ever been in love with a white woman. Nat asks why this is and Midge tells him that while he may have run around with a wild Commie crowd, he was stuck with with his own where he came from, being a black man. "Wait, stop, excuse me..." says Nat and there is what the script of the original stage play specifically describes as being a beat before Nat takes out his bifocals and studies Midge, declaring "My God, you're right. You are a black man." Another beat, then he bursts into laughter, then following this Midge does too as realizes that Nat has got him again.
• Bittersweet Ending: Midge not only just got out of the hospital after several weeks, but lost his job as well as the generous severance package he had been offered, thanks to Nat's meddling. Nat, meanwhile, lost his battle with his daughter and has to go to the senior center every day and check in with her regularly. On the positive side, both are still alive, without any lasting injury, and will likely be needling each other in the park for many years to come.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Nat's daughter, Clara, gives this to him hard when calling him out for wandering around the park and the neighborhood, stirring up trouble, getting hurt, and her not being able to get in contact with him. He tears into her for abandoning the cause, no longer fighting for the unions and the common people, and she tells him that everyone else already has, that even the Russians gave up, that he's the only one who's left. She tells him she's worried she's going to find him seriously hurt or even dead and lays out three choices for him: living with her in Great Neck, moving into the Maple Hills Senior Residence, or leaving himself available once a week and every afternoon visiting the Big Apple Senior Center and participating in the activities there. He rejects them all and she tells him that she's prepared to take legal action if needed.
• Comically Missing the Point: Purposely invoked as the premise of the joke that inspires the film's title. The joke is a Straight Man and Wise Guy routine in which the wise guy says to the straight man stuff like "Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard. Now you're old with a mustache," to which the straight man replies repeatedly "I'm not Rappaport." The punchline is "And you changed your name too."
• Insistent Terminology: Midge shouts at Nat about his "goddamn lies," saying that he isn't even friendly with the truth. Nat tells him that they're "Not lies. Alterations," that he makes alterations because sometimes the truth doesn't fit, that he was one person for 80 years, so why not one hundred for the next 5.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Nat Moyer has told Midge Carter various stories regarding his past, including that he is an escaped Cuban terrorist named Hernando and that this claim is actually a cover story for his real job, which may or may not be espionage.
• Perilous Old Fool: Nat Moyer. Nat's glory days are well past him, but he still keeps on fighting. As his daughter says, he always knows what side to be on because he fights old wars that nobody cares about anymore. When he tries to stand up for Midge in an actual street fight, he loses badly and gets hurt. When he ends up convincing Midge to help him take on pimp that's hassling a woman at the park where they hang out, it's Midge who gets hurt and he is finally forced to start taking responsibility.
• Rambling Old Man Monologue: Nat is a master of this, but is so eloquent that he actually gets people to listen to him, at least until their brains finally catch up and they realize a lot of it is nonsense.
• Reluctant Retiree: Played With. One of the key plot points of the film is that Midge is being forced to retire, despite still being good at his job. He doesn't really want to retire, but isn't really interested in fighting it either because it's not really in his nature, but also because he's being offered a fairly generous severance package. Upon hearing about it, however, Nat will have none of it and decides to go to bat for him, despite his protests.
• Speech-Centric Work: It is almost entirely just two men sitting on a bench talking to each other. The film expands on the theatre version by adding a bit more action, but is still this at its core.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: When Moyer introduces Midge Walters to the comedy routine that's the subject of the film's title, he explains it this way, telling Midge that he should be the straight man who no matter what he says replies with "I'm not Rappaport". More generally, within the film itself, this is for the most part of the two's dynamic. Both are old men past their prime, but Nat likes to play things fast and wild, but Midge is a straight-shooter who has rarely risked anything until meeting Nat.