L'honneur des Prizzi

The mafia-comedy hardly seems like a new idea in 2009, we've seen it done well ("The Sopranos"), done alright ("Married to the Mob" or "Analyze This") and done badly (any number of films, "The Godson" for example) and it practically seems quite an established film subject, even a cliché one at this point. However, to fully understand "Prizzi's Honor" if you've seen some of the latter day mafia-comedies that followed it, you have to understand that at one point it was a novel idea to make a movie where mafia dons and hit men were comedic fodder.

If you approach "Prizzi's Honor" expecting it to pick up where its successors left off, you're bound to be disappointed and will likely find it slow and its jokes stale. It's important to remember that this was the first major production to take the subject matter of "The Godfather" (high-level mafia families) and satirize it. It therefore must have seemed quite clever and groundbreaking in 1985 to lampoon the bizarre behaviors and concepts of honor that "The Godfather" and all its imitators had presented to us as reality. You really can't hold "Prizzi's Honor" accountable because so many others realized there was a satirical goldmine here and exploited it until the mafia-comedy film was as cliché as the mafia film, so when approaching this movie, I tried to remember nothing like this had really been done before.

Prizzi's Honor opens with a wedding scene, which is probably a nod to "The Godfather", but it is a very weak and plodding scene by any definition and especially in comparison to the masterpiece it emulates. From there it's mostly uphill though, as Nicholson's tremendous acting is just enough to suspend disbelief as his character, the son of a high ranking mafioso, has a wacky whirlwind romance with a dashing woman he meets at the wedding, only to discover she is mixed up in scamming his own mafia family and she's actually a hired killer just as he is, but that his love for her is so strong that her background doesn't matter. Dating the enemy becomes more and more of a tightrope walk and increasingly their genuine wedded bliss seems to be interrupted by their real world jobs, which would suggest they should see each other as a threat, and both of them typically deal with threats by homicide, leading to a quite funny problem that recurs throughout the film.

The film is very quirky, since it's basically making up a new style of film there's a lot of imagination and the plot itself doesn't fall into any clichés. However, it does exploit a basketful of mafia movie clichés, from the over-the-top Brooklyn drawl that Nicholson somehow pulls off to the corpse-like appearance of the decrepit yet ruthlessly brilliant Don Corrado Prizzi. As most of its successors have just combined mafia clichés with a basic plot, "Prizzi's Honor" seems quite fresh with its complex plot and wonderfully offbeat characters.

"Prizzi's Honor" seems to have fallen by the cinematic wayside, at least, it's not on too many short lists of great films, and its lackluster IMDb rating (6.8) rates it below or alongside many works it actually paved the way for. To some extent I think it suffers from the notion that very few good "serious" films emerged from America in the 80s aside from the stuff Woody Allen was doing. While to some extent this movie does seem to reflect some of the mid-80s film-making malaise, there is a lot of very clever work being done here, and this really is a movie worth remembering.

"Prizzi's Honor" is one of those strange charmers that thrives on dark comedy and whacked situations. Mafia hit-man Jack Nicholson (Oscar-nominated) meets the super-erotic Kathleen Turner at a wedding and of course ends up dumping girlfriend Anjelica Huston (in a well-deserved Oscar-winning turn). The fact that Huston is the daughter of one of Nicholson's associates only makes the plot thicken. What Nicholson does not know is that Turner is really an assassin herself. Will he find out that his lover by night is really a hit-woman by day? And will he learn in time that the two have actually been hired to kill each other? Also along for the ride are scene-stealers Robert Loggia and William Hickey (who received an Oscar nod as the family's don). "Prizzi's Honor" was the final venture for legendary director John Huston (who was near death when he was Oscar-nominated for this). That little tidbit does not change the fact that "Prizzi's Honor" is really a strange experience that does not completely succeed. It is a movie that serves its purpose, but the ending does not justify the means used to get there. The Oscar-nominated screenplay makes itself out to be much more intelligent than it really is and ultimately Nicholson and Turner have to carry the production. Still a good movie, but over-rated and even a bit disappointing when all is said and done. 4 stars out of 5.

When a whole lot of his contemporaries were dead or in retirement, John Huston was still making some very good movies and even winning Oscars for family members. Prizzi's Honor was kind of a coda to his career having directing his father Walter for Best Supporting Actor for The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre in 1948, in 1945 daughter Anjelica Huston wins for Best Supporting Actress in Prizzi's Honor. That's a feat that will really be hard for any director to duplicate.

The Prizzis are your Eighties version of the Corleones, a Mafia family headquartered in Brooklyn with far reaching interests including Las Vegas like the Corleones. Jack Nicholson is Charlie Partanna, not the most polished knife in the drawer, but one of the sharpest. Mafia families inbreed more than royalty or hillbillies and Charlie's expected to marry Maerose Prizzi who is played by Anjelica Huston, the ultimate Mafia princess. He's practically been raised to be her prince consort.

But one look at the beautiful and sophisticated Kathleen Turner and Nicholson's hormones are at light-speed overdrive. But Kathleen's got a secret or two as well. She was in on a scam that took $720.000.00 from the Prizzis in Las Vegas. And in a real bow to women's liberation, something indeed from a tradition bound organization like the Mafia, she's also a hit woman with a contract on Nicholson.

Some 20 years before those marrieds Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were trying to bed and kill each other simultaneously in Mr.&Mrs. Smith, Nicholson and Turner were going at it, tongue and gun. John Huston after 30 years finally repeated a black comedy, a much better black comedy than Beat The Devil.

Besides Anjelica's win, Prizzi's Honor was up for several more Oscars in 1985 including Best Picture, Best Actor for Jack Nicholson, Best Supporting Actor for William Hickey, Best Director for John Huston and others. Prizzi's Honor is the kind of film where the jokes sneak up on you, don't expect belly laughs, but minutes after something is said, the line will kick in.

And Prizzi's Honor was a great film to have to your credit in the twilight of your career for John Huston.

This movie is often good and funny, but sometimes 's not focused enough. The story tries to cover a lot of themes, genres, and plot implications which doesn't always work. The best parts are the ones which deal with Charlie/Irene complicated relationship, in which you never know for sure if she's manipulating him from the beginning or not. One funny thing was the homage to Mafia movies, such as The Godfather. Some lines really hit their targets, too (Well, it's not many if you consider the size of the population, comes to mind).

The acting is very good, and the best thing of the movie. Jack Nicholson plays an incredibly dumb character, that gets wonderfully developed by the end. He has a great comic timing. Kathleen Turner is very good, she has a great chemistry with Jack, and can look innocent and the moment after a total bitch. Besides, she ha a great, calm, sure delivery. Anjelica Huston is very funny playing mean / jealous / spoiled / manipulative/sweet, though lack of screen time hurts. The supporting are all great, and the one who plays the Don is hilarious, with his sadistic way of saying his lines.

The direction is simple, but has some original shots, it works with this material. It's mostly steady camera. The music creates a contrast; it's quite cheery and happy, and that makes the movie funnier. It's a very dark comedy in my opinion, and sometimes a romance drama. It's worth watching, and original, but not a masterpiece. 7.5/10

Once I had a little context, I enjoyed it.

It's not your typical mob movie. And maybe not typical anything else.

Comes from an author who writes satirical books about abuse of power. Known for The Manchurian Candidate. And this.

So this is a satirical mob movie. But the satire is watered down some in the movie compared to the book, apparently.

Watching it with that lens, knowing some of it is kind of a subtle/wry/dark humor, sort of making fun of the mob with these over the top characters and plot lines... It actually becomes quite funny. And fun.

And Jack Nicholson's character is well done I think. As well as his main love interest.

So if you can handle all of that...

8/10.