Die Mafiosi-Braut

This is a consistently funny story with some serious action scenes thrown in here and there. That combination of mob movie and comedy makes this a fun film to watch.l The characters in this movie are just that: characters. Everyone is a little off, actually a little too wacky for any believability. It's just a outrageous story played for laughs with few things making sense or being realistic.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Modine are the stars but Mercedes Ruehl steals the show, in my opinion, as the jealous wife. Dean Stockwell is great as the smooth mob man. Even with all the makeup to make her look cheap, Pfeiffer ("Angela de Marco") still can't hide that fabulous face. The costumes in here are great, too.

This is not family fare with a deserved R-rating for language, violence and some nudity but it's not really a rough movie. It has its charms, that's for sure. Modine plays the nice guy "Mike Downey."

Note: stay with the ending credits, because there is a lot of footage of scenes that never made it to the movie but were very interesting.

Time does extraordinary things. It's the ultimate judge. Time has granted "Married To The Mob" an extra doses of freshness. There aren't any dead moments or cheap shots. It's more of a delight now than it ever was. Michelle Pfeiffer creates a mafia widow that it's as far away from a caricature as anything she's ever done. A true original creation touching or hinting at the stereotype just to guide us through but her Angela is quite unique. The legendary Dean Stockwell presents us with a a mafia boss that it's just as menacingly real as he is hilarious. And Matthew Modine? Why did I think back then that he didn't have any chemistry with Pfeiffer? I was wrong. They are wonderful together. They reminded me, this time, to the Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray of "Remember The Night" I'm writing this comment now to entice you to visit or revisit this Jonathan Demme gem.

It ain't Shakespeare, that's true, but it is a light and breezy romp. Pfieffer and Modine and Baldwin and Dean Stockwell are all having a great time with this 'dissatisfied mob wife' tale, and you will too. Interesting to watch this in the light of the "sopranos"- they are like loopy relatives somehow. Demme went on to greater, darker films (silence of the lambs, philadelphia) but I still enjoy his lighter period. So will you.

A movie sometimes, actually, most of the time, needs a nudge in the right casting direction. For Married to the Mob, we have Michelle Pfeiffer and Dean Stockwell in two big roles, and others for Matthew Modine and Mercedes Ruehl to sink their teeth into, too. Each actor takes over the role in his or her own way, and makes these characters into well-rounded people. The key for Jonathan Demme is this: people. They're not simply cartoon figures in a farce, but like in a good ol' screwball comedy from the days of Cary Grant, we got a premise and story that begs for actors who are so smart that they can get playing dumb, or just off-kilter or a little deranged. When we see Pfeiffer here, we believe that she's at a crossroads in her life, and she doesn't play it for laughs. Instead, she lets others around her go more over the top. In another story, she would be just as believable as an uncertain widow with a past she'd rather forget.

And yes, Dean Stockwell is here in another gob-smackingly good acting gig (he even got an unlikely supporting actor nod for it). There's something about the guy that is just a little creepy, not really his fault, per-say, except that it's something in his eyes, his mannerisms, the way he'll glance at a character he doesn't trust or has something really to say to. He did this perfectly in his one scene in Blue Velvet, and to a more restrained extent in Tucker The Man & His Dream. Here, however, he goes to town as a mob-boss caricature, but he also doesn't do ALL of the heavy lifting. He is still subtle compared to Ruehl's turn as Russo's wife, who has insane jealousy (and rightfully so, perhaps, if not so far as she goes), and is so over the top that she does her best to chew scenery every which way she can.

So then, with a good premise, and some fine supporting actors (Alec Baldwin has a few decent moments too), what's the problem? I think, perhaps, Demme wasn't always sure how to take the comedy where it needed to go. The script has the characters playing up behavior, which works well when, for example, Modine's "Mike Smith" is caught in a rock and a hard place in going out on a date with Angela. But other set-pieces sort of fall flat, and the ending is unsatisfying (especially irritating is Demme's decision to put in deleted clips from the film in the end credits, his way of doing 'outtakes'). And some of the dialog is over-cooked, making the actors strain to make it credible consistently.

But Married to the Mob is fun within a certain frame of mind. It plays up some clichés like it's going out of style (which is sort of did) and leaves out others, and you may enjoy seeing the actors enjoying themselves in the scenes. It's a lighthearted affair, with touches of appropriate mob violence, and David Byrne of the Talking Heads doing the music!

I had to write this review because the only user comments on file don't begin to do this film justice. For one thing, Michelle Pfeiffer is TERRIFIC in this role -- she demonstrates a marvelous comedic style we don't often get to see. (Maybe the other reviewer prefers her serious work, but I dispute the comment that Pfeiffer has "matured" beyond this role. It's a comedy, for goodness' sake!)

And yes, Alec Baldwin is quite good, but it's Matthew Modine who steals the picture! (He also has much more screen time.) Mercedes Ruehl and Dean Stockwell (as Tony 'The Tiger' Russo) are absolutely delicious. The plot is delightful, and sometimes manages to touch on some more somber issues, as all great comedies do.

In short, I've seen this hilarious film two or three times over the years, and thinking about it now makes me eager to watch it all over again!