The trailers for this looked awful showing close-ups of Toni Collette mugging it up for the camera as she watches the mob craziness happening around her. It didn’t screen for the critics here, which is never a good sign. But it was playing at the Angelika Film Center on a free afternoon I had, so…in honor of mob movies, I grabbed my favorite cigar (an Ashton), and smoked it outside before the film started. My wife said, as she finished her Philly cheesesteak sandwich, “You know this movie is going to be horrible, right?”
I responded, “Yeah, but…Toni Collette is one of the Top 5 actresses working today, and I’d see anything she’s in.”
And guess what? We’re both glad we did, because we laughed a lot watching it. It’s a shame that it’s getting such bad reviews and isn’t doing well at the box office. Look, it’s not as funny as Analyze This. It is (surprisingly) gory in scenes like Goodfellas. I was reminded of the movie Little Big League, which came out 30 years ago. Jason Robards owns a major league baseball team, dies, and leaves it to his grandson who loves baseball. The kid is only 12, but does a decent job managing the team. It also got bad reviews, and it was also a fun film.
Mafia Mamma never takes itself too seriously and most of the gags work. [side note: anybody remember the song Motorcycle Mama by Sailcat?]
The film starts poorly with an over-the-top scene as mom Kristin (Collette) bemoans her son heading off to college. Her dopey husband joins them for a hug, and then takes a school administrator into his basement man-cave for sex. When they’re caught in the act, and Kristin reacts, you wonder if the movie will get better. Nobody is acting like how real people would act in a situation like that (although you do laugh when the woman shows up at the window a few minutes later to pick up the cell phone she left behind).
Kristin’s grandfather dies and she flies to his funeral in Italy. Her best friend Jenny (Sofia Nomvete) encourages her to make it an Eat, Pray, Love trip (although she hilariously substitutes “love” with something else). And every time later in the movie that Eat, Pray, Love is brought up, it gets a laugh (the best one being when a mobster waxes poetic about the author).
Kristin finds out her grandfather left her something in his will – the mob organization that he runs. Luckily, Bianca (Monica Bellucci) is there to show her the ropes; and also inform her that if she turns down the job of running this mafia clan, the rivals will hunt her down and kill her. What’s a girl to do?
Bellucci, known for more serious roles, does a great job with the silly comedy. In one scene, she’s showing her prosthetic leg. In another, she’s trying to talk Kristin out of a new relationship, asking “Have you even farted in front of him yet?”
I immediately thought of an interview Jeff Daniels once did where he talked about how mad his agent was that he did Dumb and Dumber, especially when he had to do multiple takes of the scene with him on a toilet. I’m sure Bellucci’s manager rolled their eyes at the thought of her doing a silly American comedy with lines like this, and one that deals with tropes and stereotypes. But these were different roles for both these talented actresses to take.
I’m not a fan of slapstick comedy, but the stuff in this usually worked. And even gags like…Collette quickly chugging a glass of wine after witnessing a shooting, and the slight burp that comes out of her mouth, cracked me up. My wife and I both laughed out loud, when Kristin says the thing that turns her on most is watching Stanley Tucci on a cooking show (I won’t give you the X-rated description).
And yes, because every movie seems to have a barf scene in it, this does, too. And just as legendary film critic Roger Ebert wrote in one of his books, “If you see a fruit stand on the side of the road, rest assured, a car is going to drive into it.”
I’ve argued with my guy friends about how they can like stupid action pictures. They’ll say, “I just want to shut off my brain and forget about the world, while watching a stupid action picture where everyone is shooting each other and things blow up.”
I never understood that logic, because I still need a movie to be good for it to be entertaining. Yet with comedies, I have that logic. I can turn off my brain, realizing that nothing about this movie is remotely realistic…but if it gives me enough jokes that make me laugh, I’m glad I saw it. And I think most people will be pleasantly surprised (my wife was, although she thought it was unnecessarily gory).
3 stars out of 5.