There's a fine line between friendship and betrayal.
Overview
When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.
In Carlito's Way, Al Pacino warns us that “a favor’s gonna kill you faster than a bullet.” In Chinese Coffee (2000) we see what he meant by that. Harry Levine (Pacino) and Jake Manheim (Jerry Orbach), whose friendship seems to illustrate that misery loves company, have exchanged favors; Harry loaned Jake $500 to buy photographic equipment, and Jake said he would read Harry's manuscript.
Jake, however, has no money to pay the strapped-for-cash Harry back (both are starving artists at an age when this lifestyle has long since ceased to be a voluntary choice and has become "nothing but a long h... read the rest.