PLEASE NOTE: THIS FILM WAS REVIEWD BY T G BARBIE. NAUDY DID NOT SEE THIS FILM. (NAUDY WILL NOT SEE THIS MOVIE UNLESS SOMEONE CHAINS HER TO A CHAIR AND FORCES HER TO WATCH IT OR SHE'S BORED AND THERE'S NOTHING ELSE PLAYING AT THE DOLLAR MOVIES AT 11PM ON A TUESDAY.)
Visually, it was dark.
Not the brooding, troubled hero darkness of BATMAN: THE BEGINING dark, not Film Noir dark, not the evil "I gotta go to church now" dark, not the delightful yet crazy and twisted Tim Burton dark, or even a touch of the classic Mafia movie "can’t rise above my station-my life sucks-let’s kill everyone in retaliation because I’m going to Hell anyway" dark; but dark as in the really annoying gray, grainy, "is this a bootleg copy-or did I just get cataracts?" dark.
At first, I thought it was the projector bulb, but the previews were really bright (and for a $9.50 movie, they better have a new bulb in the projector!), so it had to be just this copy of the movie. I thought maybe the director was doing the creative ‘rising out of darkness and obscurity and going into the light" symbolism parallel to the storyline, the whole ‘let’s tell the story with the lighting’ thing, but Nope to that too.
Now for the actual movie, the first ¾’s of the movie was very cliché. The actors did the best they could with the script. I’ve seen better mobsters on the Disney Channel. But after the main character has his predictable change of heart, it’s actually a pretty funny movie. I especially liked the scene where they strong arm a little kid, and the tribute to the Godfather’s "Leave the gun, take the Cannolli." If you happen to just walk in and catch the last little bit, you wouldn’t miss a thing. Overall, if you have to see this, wait to see this at a ward function, or the $2 theater.
