Rupert Pumpkin is a first for an American movie. Am I right? He's a semi-functioning nut case. Infected by the need to be someone when the someone he's longing to be is a shallow image of non existing humanity. Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and writer Paul D Zimmerman concoct a pungent indictment to the era of TV fame and they do it with such virtuosity that the entertainment is immediate even if there is a nagging undertaste that ultimately dominates the memory of this extraordinary modern classic.