Durant's Never Closes

Our feature film Durant’s Never Closes, a crime/drama and biopic of Jack Durant, a restaurateur, ladies man and a mysterious gentleman connected to the mob.

Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Heat) plays Jack Durant, a dynamic and dangerous gentleman who runs the most famous steakhouse in Phoenix, Arizona. He caters to movie stars, politicians and mobsters. He knows all their secrets but does anyone really know the man they call Jack Durant? Durant’s Never Closes also stars Michelle Stafford (The Young and the Restless), Peter Bogdanovich (director of The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), and Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite).

Director’s Note

I have always been interested in telling local stories with our movies. The story of Durant’s and Jack Durant is one that had to be told. The restaurant is the last of its kind in Phoenix, where most of the city’s historical buildings have been mowed down and replaced with Walgreens or condominiums. After reading the play and book written about Jack (and which we optioned for the film), the man himself became much more the story than anything around him. See, Jack is one of those incredibly complex men that I love to watch in movies: think Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull or Roy Scheider in All That Jazz.

Tom Sizemore may not have been always easy to work with but let’s face it, neither am I. In my biased opinion, he gives an incredible performance supported by a gallery of fine acting from both Arizona locals and faces you may know from Hollywood. It’s a wild movie, not conventional by any standards in how we approached this man’s life, and that is one of the many reasons I’m proud of it.

-Travis Mills