Vincent Gardenia (inhis last screen role) is a slumlord who taught his son, Joe Pesci their tenants are animals: collect rents and put nothing into the buildings. But the City has caught up to them, and it's one of the buildings in Pesci's name, so he is the one sentenced to occupy an apartment there and to bring it up to code. And so we meet his tenants, and they are just as much stereotyped jerks as he is. In the face of this, he has no incentive to do anything but squat in misery when Gardenia tries to put the fix in.
Of course we know going in that Pesci will have a change of heart by the end, and it has to arise from somewhere: there's the welfare lawyer Madelyn Smith Osborne, whom Pesci propositions every time they speak, and 13-year-old Kenny Blank, who lives with his father and hustles in a sweet-faced manner, and gives the most endearing performance in the movie. In the meantime, Pesci is stuck with the unenviable task oif taking a thoroughly unlikeable character, having him kicked repeatedly for the audience's amusement, and still have the audience on his side as he finally reforms. Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton had managed this in a few of their features in the 1920s, but it's a tough thing to manage,, especially given that for the first time in his career, Pesci is the lead..
I don;t think this movie succeeds in its ambitions, but there are certainly enough good moments to keep the audience entertained.
