Quem Tudo Quer, Tudo Perde

Mildly enjoyable diversion seems grossly out of place it De Palma's canon. The premise is interesting - two loser hoodlums (Danny DeVito and Joe Piscapo) try to screw over a mob boss and end up getting hunted down. However, it is never particularly funny and the story isn't really that interesting. De Palma's directorial mastery is nowhere to be seen here - the direction is competent but the script never really gives him a chance to demonstrate his skills. Not as bad as some make it out to be, but certainly a failure, especially considering that it came between Body Double and Casualties of War, two of De Palma's best films.

This is a great movie if you like the life. They teach you how to outsmart the mob and come out on top. Harry & Moe want to be somebody but when they make a mistake it could cost them their lives. They take off to Atlantic City and hide out from the mob bosses and from their-selves only to find the true meaning of friendship and loyalty. Casting such talented people as Danny Devito, Joe Piscopo, Dan Hedaya, Harvey Keitel, Captain Lou Albano, Patti Lupone, Ray Sharkey, working from a script by George Gallo, produced by Aaron Russo, DePalma put his trademark stamp on this film, and turned out something so funny that you will be screaming with laughter the entire time.

Yes, even though it is a comedy, DePalma throws in a terrific last minute twist that is utterly climatic and fantastic and hilarious. Everyone in this is hilarious, especially Albano, Devito, and Piscopo, who never did a funnier film before or after this one. Not to be mistaken and/or confused with the dreadful "Johnny Dangerously".

Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

This has to be Brian dePalma's best film to date. Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo are two losers who get the crummiest jobs and errands from a Newark mob boss (Dan Hedaya). After truly "dissing" the mob boss to the tune of $100,000, our two heroes head to Atlantic City for safety. However, they travel in the prized convertible of the bosses tough, enormous right hand man, Frankie (Captain Lou Albano in a hysterical, priceless performance) They even have Frankie's gold card! Thru elaborate, strange run-ins, DeVito and Piscopo wipe out the entire Newark mob clan, and live happily ever after. The performances are all over the top, and it's great! Hedaya's mob boss who prays when he's at his angriest, DeVito's unbearable older female relatives, Hedaya's mob (Including Frank Vincent in a haircut and sunglasses only mobsters wear), and Harvey Kietel doing a wonderful, soft-spoken turn as the well respected Atlantic City mob boss. The physical comedy is wonderful. We know Frankie is annoyingly careful with his "baby", a classic convertible. When DeVito and Piscopo get revenge by taking it out on the highway and guzzling fast food (and smearing it all over the dashboard!), you'll either howl with laughter or just gape. Sample dialog: Mobster looking at big piece of fabric: "Frankie, Awfully strange looking pillowcase." Frankie (Mad as Hell): "That's not my pillowcase, that's my underwear!"

This movie is silly but never stupid, so you can just enjoy it for what it is...a Jersey mob comedy. Principals DeVito and Piscopo are life-long friends who live next door to each other in Newark, and their source of income comes from the mob figure (Dan Hedaya) who allows them to pick up his dry cleaning and start his car (this was a funny scene..DeVito starting a car that might explode..the entire neighborhood clears out in 20 seconds! Plus the other mobsters bet on the outcome!) and go to the track for him. They are sometimes joined by Captain Lou Albano, who is out of his mind but at least did not attach those rubber bands to his face like he did when he was WWF-connected, and he has little patience for either of these flunkies.

Don't want to give anything else away, but the friends are put in the position of having to test their friendship and on the whole, this is a very satisfying comedy with a two leads in good form, great character actors like Julie Bovasso, Antonia Rey, Patti Lupone, Ray Sharkey, and an appearance by Harvey Keitel, too! Plus authentic Jersey locations, including a trip to Atlantic City..

Brian DePalma directed, and he is not renowned for his comedies but maybe he should be.

Let's just say it up front: Brian De Palma doesn't direct comedies, at least not as a major part of his career. When he's done so it's usually in the realm of black comedies or satires, like his early films (Greetings/Hi Mom) or the rightfully maligned Bonfire of the Vanities. His sense of comedy is BIG (note the caps) and broad, but his farce is nowhere near the kind of genius of Mel Brooks. His slapstick is so large and spread out in scenes that it makes Looney Tunes look subtle (having Captain Lou Albino as one of the main bad-guys, the "Fixer" as he's called, is part of it). And the story is fairly idiotic too.

Yet I found myself enjoying Wise Guys, but for the little it aimed for. This isn't a grand vision like De Palma would immediately after go for in The Untouchables and Casualties of War. It was a trifle, a way to test himself in a low budget with actors he hadn't worked with before- chiefly stars Danny De Vito and (yes, star) Joe Piscapo. They play grunts whose job is to serve at the behest of mob boss Castelo (Dan Hedaya, hamming it up like it's nobody's business). When the two dopes lay a bet on a horse that isn't the one Castelo bet on and loses, they're each given a charge: each must kill the other to prove loyalty.

This, of course, is another set-up for a series of missteps in the two knuckleheads running away from the Castelo bosses, all the way down in Atlantic City as Harry tries to find his Uncle Mike, very much dead. The subtitle for the film could be called 'Wackiness Ensues', and De Palma doesn't let anything go past as being unnoticeable. Particularly is one scene, perhaps De Palma's most daring (or just recognizably 'De Palma) cinematographic-ally when Harry has to go turn on 'the car' that might explode any moment (the shot speeds up and does a 360 as everyone runs away from the scene, a hoot-take on his usual style). And in the script, some lines of dialog and set-ups are so blunt you can feel the force at the back of your head.

But somehow, against all of the odds of the 'ho-hum' quality of the set-up, it's fun because of the acting. Joe Piscapo is mentioned today, just his name, as a punch-line, but there was a time when he was at least halfway amusing (mostly in skits with Eddie Murphy on SNL), and here he's let loose with the a character like Moe who, I guess compared to Harry, is the straight guy depending on the scene. Harry, meanwhile, gives Danny De Vito a real chance to chomp at the bit: he's so over the top, but he's also a believable luck-believer (he goes for it the way Bible-thumpers go for God), and in those moments when Piscapo falls totally flat, somehow De Vito comes back in to make things fun in the delirious way. Others like Lou Albino and, on a more subtle-menacing scale, Harvey Keitel, do a competent job in their roles.

So, going in and expecting a really great comedy or just an interesting piece of art will mean some disappointment. As a juicy diversion that ask for nothing except a few chuckles by way of the New Jersey Turnpike, it does its job reasonably well; De Palma fans who find themselves going through his thrillers and blockbusters first will come across this, possibly, last in his catalog. But it's far from his worst.