Last I Heard

I admit I saw the Once upon aaa. title, then the cast, and assumed it was the same old... But with a spare afternoon, what the heck. How wrong could I be!! Simple, different, and strangely touching. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and reaffirmed the life lesson, don't assume anything.

Paul Sorvino plays an aging mobster released from jail after two long decades and earnestly struggles to find his place amidst a rapidly changing world. This isn't a gangster movie per say, it's not even Good Fellas in a retirement home, it's more of a retrospective character piece of what an aging mobster ripped from the pillars of power and left to be mostly forgotten would subsequently face when released after so long. And I guess it begs the question in all of its soul searching and kitschy "east coast neighborhood" dialogue was this move absolutely necessary? Sorvino and Rappaport certainly play their roles well but the movie feels like it's operating in some sort of invisible sandbox that unfortunately only superficially scratches the surface of its characters, leaving us with a fairly empty feeling after it's all over. One can't help but ask what was the point exactly? The largest character arcs are written and served on a convenient platter rather than developed organically. It's certainly a different take on the gangster movie and the refreshing aspect of that point ends right there, what it doesn't do is reinvent the character study, slogging along tiredly trying to find footing somewhere. If the directors point was to give us hyper realism then it certainly beats watching someone vaccum for 90 minutes, but I think the main point is lost somewhere in another movie. So you can't teach an old dog new tricks and criminals don't change...the end. It's not completely far fetched to understand that older adults who leave prison are certainly disenfranchised, thrust into a brave new world thats busy with distraction. But Shawshank Redemption did this concept better in 15 minutes than this could do in 90. It's not a horrible movie by any regard but it's certainly missing that something to set it apart.

This was billed as a comedy drama, it was neither. It was 1 hour 41 minutes of shear boredom.

Bad acting, bad screenplay an all round bad movie. How this drivel got a 6.2 score is unbelievable.

Do yourself a favour and steer clear of this lemon.

This surely had to be a straight to DVD release as there is no way this thing could have done anything at the cinemas.

It is basically a movie about absolutely nothing.

The strained continuous crying scenes were pitiful to watch. The characters were one dimensional unconvincing, and just made you dislike them altogether.

Some of the more fantastic scenes involved character talking to each other without any audio other than music. Extremely annoying and must be just there to pad this rubbish out a bit.

Who the heck wrote this garbage? So boring, the opposite of what a gangster movie. People watch gangsta movies to see gangstas not alphabet people apologetics. Turned it off as soon as the daughter came out, just another preachy woke movie.

I cannot describe how awful this movie was. It amazes me that they were able to get good (note I say good, not great) actors like Michael Rappaport & Sorvino with a script that a first grader could have written after having watched Goodfella's once.

There is absolutely no arc to the story. Sorvino must have been trying to reclaim his goodfella's glory in order to agree to be in this turd.

Nothing more can be said except to avoid watching at all costs. Even if your a huge gangster movie fan (such as I) avoid this film. You and your PCP smoking neighbor could have written a better script in between digging through your mother's sofa cushions for spare change.