American Born

Being a huge mafia movie enthusiast, I can't understand people who make utter crap wannabee mob-movies like THIS. It's even worse than watching an 80's Cindy Lauper video! It's nothing but terribly type casted actors who can do nothing but act so bland and utterly bad. Clearly the screenplay is completely uninspired , accompanied by a bad script which in my opinion is filled with empty and mindless dialogs. The movie has a porno movie quality sound, not to mention the lighting, it consists of stolen Mafia cliché's wrapped up in an early 90's urban atmosphere that doesn't do any good no matter how you look at this "thing". The filmmakers are trying to make the viewer believe that he/she is watching a movie about Italian mafia wannabee kids working in the oh so obvious pizza place, who revive crime inc. after the place gets robbed and their uncle gets killed...... An insult to the genre and all the good that has been made prior to this, and a complete waste of time.

This film appears to have been made up as they went along, there being so little evidence of any form of script. It seemed to consist mainly of montage. I consider the three hours I spent watching this film as one of my least profitable activities ever. (The film actually only runs for one and a half hours; it just seemed like three) The only bright spot was a brief view of a naked breast and even this was probably only put in to raise it's rating to 15 (Australia). This is one of these films that is simply just bad. Not bad enough to be memorable, like "Plan 9 from Outer Space" or "Manos,the Hands of Fate", just badly made and boring.

This is a good movie. I liked it. I only saw it once and it was on commercial television. I would like to see it without being edited or interrupted by commercials. I haven't seen it since that first time and I would like to see it again. My very favorite movies are the Godfather Films. This film doesn't compare to them, but I still enjoyed it. Maybe I'm just intoxicated by any gangster film.

My review was written in October 1990 after watching the film on PM video cassette.

This ambitious made-for-video feature pays homage to the classic gangster films via a wish-fulfillment plot: a youngster dresses up and starts acting like Cagney and Bogie to avenge his dad's rubout.

Andrew zeller portrays Sally Boy, a New York kid whose dad Frankie Fingers (Phil Suriano), is killed in his pizza parlor by rival gangsters. Zeller, who watches old gangster pics obsessively on video, goes into a nearly catatonic state at the trauma of his dad's demise. Snapping out of it, he thinks he's a real-life gangster Don Salvatore and dresses up to fit the part.

Twist is that the adults start to humor Zeller because it fits their own purposes. Gangster Geroge Simonelli tricks the boy into carrying out his dirty work, and Zeller's uncle Patsy (Joey Travolta) joins in the mayhem enthusiastically.

Film holds up until several final reel scenes meant as homages to "The Godfather" and "The Roaring Twenties", e.g., intercutting Travolta blasting mobsters with shots of the Midnight Christmas Mass at the cathedral and a death scene on building steps.

These sophomoric tributes aside, director Raymond Martino does an okay job with limited resources. Acting is passable, and Travolta takes another step toward coming out of his famous brother's shadoow.