This is the story of "Snaps" Provolone (Sylvester Stallone) - a gangster who makes a promise to his father as he lies on his deathbed to go straight and bring honor back to the family name. Fast forward a month later and the majority of the movie is taking place on one very eventful morning.
This film was adapted from the play of the same name. You can tell right from the beginning by the way that director John Landis has decided to have his actors behave in exaggerated manners. And if there was any doubt, when Tim Curry comes on stage, er, screen, you know that it is an adaptation.
The comedy of this movie stops short of slapstick, which had it gone that route would have been funnier than what we had which was confusion of several black bags that keep being mistaken for each other, as well as the identity of a young woman who was pretending to be Provolone's daughter. Actually, as I think about it, this plot is rather reminiscent of something that Oscar Wilde might try to pull off, and I wonder if that's the joke - the play and this movie are both an homage to Oscar Wilde. Well, I'll go so far as to say that this movie was as entertaining as any of the productions of Wilde's plays that I've seen. Is that a qualified compliment? That is for you to figure out, and I'm guessing you know the answer to that.
I thought Stallone was going to be the weak link in this film, but he did a good job. Everyone did a good job. It's unfortunate that doing a good job meant being so annoying in the case of Marissa Tomei's portrayal of Lisa Provolone. The character was totally written to be annoying, so I can't really blame her for pulling it off.
What would have made this movie better is if it had Joe Piscopo in it...I know that there is some movie that came out around the same time with Piscopo as a mobster from the same era. It wasn't a very good movie, but perhaps the two together would work?
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