Touchstone Pictures, Rated PG-13
Directed by Jim Abrahams
Written by Jim Abrahams & Greg Norberg & Michael McManus
I've gotta confess: I love the old Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker films, and quite a few of the newer ones. However, this genre has really gone downhill in terms of quality (see High School High and Spy Hard). Mafia! (or the smarter early title Jane Austen's Mafia!), from Hot Shots! director Jim Abrahams, is the latest in this genre and should've been made years ago. Some of the jokes look that way as well. So many of them would've been funnier in the '80s. The Godfather isn't exactly a fresh target (at least there are quite a few Casino jokes). The idea is, of the most part, a bad one. Towards the beginning of the film it looked like the execution was going to be too. The film is about (like anyone cares in a spoof), the Cortino mob family and how it rose to power. The scenes with the Cortino patriarch as a child have one too many lame jokes. But just when you're about to give up on it, the wedding scene (a good, if not precise, takeoff on The Godfather) begins and the movie's quality slowly starts to improve. You find yourself laughing more and more, not just at the jokes but the ridiculous levels the plot goes to. By the time Christina Applegate (in Diane Keaton's role) is president of the United States, I, and many others in the theatre, were rolling in the aisles. The spoofs are dead-on, and the last few scenes have nary a miss in them.
Lloyd Bridges isn't exactly at his finest in his final role as the elder Cortino, but he does alright. Jay Mohr is a pretty good straight man in the Al Pacino role. There is even a stand-in for Sharon Stone in the Casino spoof segment. But the one who pulls off the best performance is Applegate. She never fails to bring in a laugh as she's completely game for the preposterous goings-on. If she puts this much effort into her NBC show this fall, it will be a hit. Over a decade on a sitcom definitely taught her something about comic timing. Perhaps my enjoyment of this movie was just the mood I was in, but some of the jokes still have me laughing. Aside from the comedy, the meticulous duplication of many scenes from The Godfather films is astounding. It's certainly far from the best film in this genre, but it's definitely a fun 60 minutes (just bear with the first 30 or so). ** 1/2
Back to the main page
