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 Mafia! Dir: Jim Abrahams Stars: Jay Mohr, Christina Applegate, Lloyd Bridges Whenever Jim Abrahams, of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker fame, is involved in a movie, you know what you're going to get. Each movie is shaped like every other movie, just as every McDonald's hamburger is shaped like every other McDonald's hamburger. And you can see every gag in the movie coming a mile a way, but you're helpless to stop it. Unpredictable, they're not. And it's a good bet that in fifty years, Mafia! won't make anyone's top 100 list. Still, like McDonald's hamburgers, people crave this kind of thing once in a while. And it rarely lets them down. Mafia!, aka Jane Austen's Mafia!, is good for a few good belly laughs and a light, forgettable evening. The targets this time around are the Godfather series, Goodfellas, Casino, and Forest Gump, with a few nods to other films to add a bit of spice. Yes, the movies it hits are old, but they've become cultural cliches. Every gag is instantly recognizable, despite the age of its inspiration. No one who's every seen the Godfather can fail to recognize the parallels between the two Cortino brothers, old man Cortino, and wife who wants out and the Corleones. And if you have to be beaten over the head, the movie is not above that. Seeing Lloyd Bridges with a large piece of watermelon in his mouth, running around the garden with his grandson, should jog the memory. Most of the gags are over the top, where they should be. The casino in the opening sequence features games like Chutes and Ladders and Candyland, while the people in the background drop money into slots with names like "Big Loser" and "You'll Never Win." One of the more disgusting set ups involves smuggling a child past gangsters using a donkey. I won't say particularly how this is accomplished, except to say the donkey probably walked crooked for quite some time after the heat died down. The parodies can also be surprisingly subtle at times, especially considering the genre. Nothing escapes Abrahams, from the lighting to the settings and costumes. All the details are as perfect as in any period piece, down to Jay Morh's army uniform and Christina Applegate's pillbox hat and button-down suit. Say what you will about the simple jokes and punchlines, but Abrahams is a master of mimicry. And the actors deserve credit simply for keeping a straight face while they deliver their lines or not looking skeptically at the camera and asking, "What the hell am I doing here?" Jay Mohr is to be praised for spitting out a phrase like "frommage a trois" and meaning it. It isn't Waiting for Godot or Hamlet, but it has to be just unsettling for the actors. Mafia! is by no means a "can't miss" movie, but if you don't feel like thinking, it's a no-brainer. -Nick |
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