Alan Gelfant stars in The Destiny Of Marty Fine as an unemployed, poverty-stricken ex-boxer who dreams of starting a training camp in Utah for underprivileged children. His already pathetic existence takes a turn for the worse when he witnesses a murder and is forced by powerful mob boss Norman Fell to kill a stranger to show his loyalty. Clearly a micro-budgeted labor of love for all involved, The Destiny Of Marty Fine is a black-and-white, Cassavetes-inspired look at society's outcasts and their perpetual quest for redemption and salvation. Unfortunately, it's also not a very good movie. Though its screenplay is credited to two different writers, the film is filled with the awkward, stilted dialogue of bad improvisation. Marty Fine's supporting roles are filled by a veritable galaxy of indie-film stars (James LeGros, Catherine Keener, Michael Ironside, Glenn Plummer), but the acting ranges from unremarkable to downright amateurish, with the sole exception of Gelfant, who captures both the guarded, tightly coiled body language of a washed-up fighter and the hopeless, defensive optimism of a man with nothing going for him but a delusional faith in humanity. But too often, Gelfant's performance is all the movie has going for it. Part of The Destiny Of Marty Fine's problem is that Gelfant never seems to be in any physical danger; instead, the film's skeletal thriller plot seems like an afterthought. And as a drama, it has all the feeble pretensions and clunky symbolism of a bad first novel. For all its faults, the film is still far less obnoxious than Vincent Gallo's similarly themed, overrated Buffalo '66, but that's faint praise indeed.