User reviews

Once again Ferrara attracts big star names to a small picture with large ambitions. This film would have made a great gangster saga but Ferrara and writer St. John are more interested about the characters than the story. What occurs on the surface may be minimal and very uncreative but deep within you enter the souls of each character who question their values as they mourn the death of a family member. Each one carrying a dilemma to the very surprising ending. This film could have been set in any era as it deals with intelligent issues such as the complex male macho image as questioned by Sciorra's character.

The Funeral is a dark and gritty story that plumbs the characters in a New York band of criminal brothers. It doesn't have the romantic sweep of a Godfather movie, nor the rawness of Scarface. But it does have great acting: the cold, sinister aloofness of the leader-brother(Christopher Walken); the raging insanity of the bartender-brother(Chris Penn); and, the cockiness of the younger communist-influenced brother. Annabella Scioria as the wife with a tortured psyche who "had two years of college", and Bennissio del Toro, as the suave and slick rival mobster round out the terrific cast.

But the movie does have some problems. The abrupt, "surprise" ending is consistent with the arcs in the movie, and is supported by trends in the characters' developments, but seems unsatisfying. Also, long philosophical conversations between killer and victims seems unrealistic. While these conversations(and flashback sequences) give insight into characters, it just doesn't seem likely.

Watch this movie if you are a fan of crime/Mafia films, and you can enjoy a thoughtful introspection of characters and relationships between characters. Don't watch it if you want to see a "thrill-a-minute", or explosions every other scene.

When it comes to cult film-maker Abel Ferrara, people seem to either love his work or hate it. I think some of his films are great but some are just rubbish. Fortunately "The Funeral" is far from being rubbish, but then it's not great either.

Set in New York in the 1930s, the film centres on an organised crime family, headed by brothers Ray (Christopher Walken) and Chezz (Chris Penn) who are set to bury their younger brother Johnny (Vincent Gallo). As Johnny's wake progresses the two remaining brothers reflect on his life and try to track down his killer.

The film is pretty well made, and benefits from strong performances all round. It's main defect is that the film tends to lose focus and go off at tangents (scenes where Johnny attends a Communist rally were pretty pointless). Also, as in many Ferrara films, there is a very blatant religious subtext which sometimes gets in the way of the drama. Also, be warned that there is a lot of pretty brutal violence in this film.

If you like gangster films (and obviously if you're a Ferrara fan) give this a go. It's worth trying anyway just for the quality of the performances.

The lives of gangster brothers Ray, Chet and Johnny are changed forever when Johnny is killed. His funeral acts as a time to look back at the past but also to look inwardly and to the future. The story is told in flashbacks that mix the past and present to see a gangster life style in all it's glory.

The story here is straightforward – however it's multi-layered flashbacks and subplots make it too confusing at times. In simple terms it is two stories – Johnny before he is killed, and the lives of his brothers afterwards. The characters make it come to life but the drama inherent in the subject matter helps as well. The story mixes `real' lives, violence and some black humour to good effect – the overall point being the point made by Sciorra when she says `there's nothing romantic about it at all'.

The cast are good – in particular the Ferrara regulars. Walken gives a more emotional version of his King of New York character and carries much of the moral debate with himself and others. Penn is also good as the self destructive brother and gives a powerful performance without becoming OTT (a la Nice Guy Eddie). Gallo is good although his character is not fully explained – why did he look for trouble, why the interest in worker's rights? Rossellini, Argo and Soprano's Ventimiglia are all good and del Toro does yet another quiet cool role.

Overall this is a good film – it is graphic and dark, but not as much as some of his other films. The subject matter will appeal to the mass audience (most people seem to like mobster movies) and his unromantic spin on the genre makes up for the occasionally bitty storyline.

I found this an interesting movie, admittedly a bit slow at points, but if you're out for another "crime gone wrong" or "gangster crime war" film, forget it. Several reviews complain about a lack of action. It's not an action film. Several reviews complain about a lack of plot. It's more an examination of characters than a story. The movie would have been much better had I been able to hear more of it. The sound editing is truly abysmal. People's shoes make more noise than their raised voices do. I actually stopped and rewound a few times to try and catch what people said. It's not the fault of the actors. It's simply a bad mix job.

7/10

In the 30's, in New York, the coffin of the leftist gangster Johnny Tempio (Vincent Gallo) is brought to the house of his older brother Ray (Christopher Walken) for the wake of family and friends. Ray is a cold gangster that likes to read and is married to Jean (Annabella Sciorra). His brother Chez (Chris Penn) is a hot head that runs a bar and is married to Clara (Isabella Rossellini). Ray decides to revenge the murder of his younger brother and believes the gangster Gaspare (Benicio Del Toro) is the one who killed Johnny. Meanwhile Chez has a breakdown with tragic consequences for the Tempio brothers.

"The Funeral" is a violent movie directed by Abel Ferrara with great characters that are developed through flashbacks along the main storyline. There are great performances and scenes but unfortunately, it seems that neither the writer nor the director knew how to end the story that has an unsatisfactory conclusion. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Os Chefões" ("The Bosses")

All of director Abel Ferrara's movies are deeply flawed, but he is willing to take you into darker places than almost any contemporary filmmaker. His best movies are the bleakest kind of cinematic art, and The Funeral is one of the best.

To complain about the lack of action in this gangster movie is to miss the entire point. This is a character study of people who have made choices in their lives that have left them without hope, in much the same way as Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant". Although it is often pretentious and a little boring, it also contains many potent, unforgettable scenes, most notably those featuring Chris Penn, who I frankly didn't think could act until I saw this movie.

"The Funeral" is an unremittingly dark film that at times achieves a terrible beauty. I'm not sure that I would recommend it, but I am extremely glad to have seen it.

Abel Ferrera's gangster film 'The Funeral' resembles a pared-down version of Scorcese's 'Goodfellas', or a truer version of 'The Sopranos'. Utterly unsentimental and chilling, it refuses to add the faintest shine of glamour to its protagonists' lives, and the cast, headed by the vampirish Christopher Walkern, are universally excellent. And yet for all this, it's not actually that interesting. The movie industry is fascinated with violence as a subject; yet the freakishly horrible behaviour of the mafia may be a sad fact of life, but it's also an oddity. This is a good film, but it belongs to an over-exposed genre, with little to say about how ordinary people live. If I have to watch a gangster film, I'd rather chose Jim Jarmusch's hilarious 'Ghost Dog' than a movie that takes its subject so seriously.

"The Funeral" is a mind-blowing experience that demands a particular patience.

In fact, you don't need the patience to 'get' it, but to try to put yourself in the shoes of men who're nothing but criminals. But as criminals as they are, they are stuck with this last ounce of humanity giving a meaning to their lives. So let's get this straight, if you're among the kind of cinematic fans with a particular revulsion towards gangsters, this film is not for you, all it will inspire is the kind of demagogic comments such as "good riddance, all these low-life bastards deserve their fate". But if you're interested by the torments invading the souls of these underworld humans, prepare yourself for a disturbing and dark journey into Mafia's hearts of darkness.

It's interesting that the central character is played by Christopher Walken, the actor had always an extraordinary combination of mental instability and charismatic aura in his eyes, the kind of man you don't know if it's safe to approach or to avoid him, in both cases, you respect and fear him. But now, we're in this man's soul at a pivotal moment in his life, when he's trying to determine, during the funeral of his brother Johny (Vincent Gallo), not what the meaning of his life is, but how he can live with himself with his personal idea of justice and the satisfaction to do something ethical. Yeah, I see where you're coming from, how can I ever use the word 'ethic' for criminals? Well, ethics refers to a code, to some behavior that doesn't necessarily take the law as a reference, and from that point, anything is debatable. And when the movie says anything, it sure means it, as even God is concerned.

Although the movie is set during Catholic funerals, the first thing that strikes is the amount of blasphemous rants during the discussions. These men don't believe in God, but they don't sound atheists, it's just as if they had a proud reaction over a religion that casted them out anyway. So if they haven't been touched by the divine grace, which could have inspired them to be good people, so why do they have to blame themselves? If everything is due to God, why should they feel guilty? And now, if it all is a matter of free will, and decision, then what makes their acts more condemnable? Any idea of justice is no better or no worse than another … the thought-provoking script invites us to feel an existential empathy toward these men, as if it tried to explicit all the dilemmas that fill the heart of criminals. After all, they have hearts, haven't they? To label them as only cold-blooded murders is another trick to avoid questioning our own approach to evil.

But whatever rationalization it tried to inspire, the counterpart of this thinking relies on the female characters, the wives, who endure the machismo of their husbands and try to figure what the purpose of all this is. Why and how have criminals, killers, fooled them? Some scenes between Annabella Sciorra and Isabella Rosselini suggest a sort of female bonding, as a reactive defensive process from the kind of fusional relationship between the brothers Christopher Walken, Vincent Gallo and Chris Penn -Rest in Peace, Chris, this was your finest performance as the most mentally instable of the three brothers- Never voyeuristic, these scenes of female intimacy where the discussions are intelligently combined with great metaphysic references, translate the lack of morality and belief innate to that cruel male world, and how it can hardly be expressed except in the confinement of a little bedroom.

The whole confinement of "The Funeral", in its setting, is crucial here. There is a cloud of lucidity floating in the air, as if the film trusted our intelligence, by not showing men trying to find excuses, but on the contrary, men extremely lucid about their fate. This is what the whole claustrophobic setting of the film is about, it's an extrapolation of the coffin, symbolizing the whole fate of the family in microcosm. These men are in a dead-end, and they know it damn well. During a heart-breaking scene between Chris Penn and a young prostitute, refusing to deprive her from her innocence, he pays her for not having sex, she asks for the double to have sex with him, provoking an incredible outburst of rage. She'll get paid twice the price then pushed against the wall and assaulted as a punishment for having sold her soul to the devil. This scene brutally reflects these men's understanding of their own conditions : they sold their soul, they know they'll never see the paradise. In other words: their lives are only a suspended sentence to hell. They don't believe in God, but they don't deny His existence either.

So, when it can't get any better, the best you can do is to make it better according to your own codes. And this is the constant disturbing feel of the film, men trying to act according to their sense of justice, their morals, trapped between their humanity and their evilness. Again, Abel Ferrara doesn't invite us to feel empathetic toward gangsters, as sometimes, the movie indecently flirts with some stereotypes to better remind us, the world lying beneath that sober and familial atmosphere. "The Funeral" reflects the affection of true funerals : a profound introspection in order to understand the value of goodness and humanity, because once you put your foot in the dark side, you can't go back, and it doesn't try to fool you with a sort of quest of redemption bullshit. They're grown-up men, and their life IS dead-end. To a point you wonder if the title "Funeral" refers to one man or three souls.

"The Funeral" is an extraordinary, dark and disturbing journey, that will simply wow you at the end … so you better get ready.

I remember going to see 'The Funeral' when it first came out. It stirred me as a film featuring extremely compelling -- and extremely non-compelling elements alike. The acting is fabulous, and each scene in that sense and taken from that perspective is a gem. It's filmed theater, though, not really traditional film acting per se. Every actor does their spiel at one point or the other. Chris Penn might be the most memorable in his boisterous impersonation of a psychotic mobster, but really it's probably Annabella Sciorra and Chris Walken who deliver the most impressive performances. Apart from that, the film truly feels half baked (not always without charm, though): Ferrara is notorious for not being always on top of his storyboard, and one can tell here, definitely, especially since the cinematography is rather ugly and uninspired. The script feels more like a play, really (and save for a few outdoor scenes, the film could have been a play, perhaps with greater success), with long, overwrought dialogue which linger in mind nevertheless. So, all in all, 'The Funeral' might not be a very good film (it actually features a few very weak scenes), but at its best, it is truly memorable, and I guess that's why we like Abel Ferrara: regardless of how bad his films can be, they always have something to deliver.

Giovanni "Johnny" Tempio (Vincent Gallo) is murder in front of a movie theater, since he is the youngest of the three brothers. His older brother Raimundo "Ray" Tempio (Oscar-Winner:Christopher Walken) and his second brother Cesarino "Chez" Tempio (The late Chris Penn) are powerful gangsters. While the funeral is done at Ray's home. Both Ray and Chez are having flashbacks of their late brother and their troubled past. While Ray is trying to find Johnny's killer and finding an reason, why he was murder. While Chez is going through his own personal hell.

Directed by Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, Body Snatchers "1994", King of New York) made an fascinating, moody, gangster drama with fascinating performances by Walken, Gallo, Annabella Sciorra as Ray's Wife, Isabella Rossellini as Chez's wife, Oscar-Winner:Bencino Del Toro as Gaspare Spoglia and especially Penn as a deeply troubled and ill-tempered Chez. Although "The Funeral" is flawed in places. I hate to admit this but Gallo certainly has an tough time playing the corpse at the funeral. Especially when Ferrara uses close-up of the actor... his eye-lids moves! Also towards the ending, there's another actor, who has an tough time playing an corpse as well!

DVD has an decent Pan & Scan (1.33:1) transfer but the DVD has some digital images problems. DVD has an good Dolby Stereo 2.0 Surround Sound. The DVD is from "Three Films Gangster Collector's Set". "Abel Farrara's The Funeral" is with two another movies on the DVD. Which they are "The Last Days of Frankie the Fly" with the late Dennis Hopper, Daryl Hannah, Kiefer Sutherland and Michael Madson. The other film is "The Immortals" with Eric Roberts, Tia Carrere and the late Tony Curtis.

"Abel Farrara's The Funeral" is close to being an great movie but i will admit it, it's a very good movie, despite some flaws keeping this picture from being an masterpiece. The late Penn gives the strongest impression on the film with his impressive performance, it is certainly the best i seen from him. Other cast members like Walken, Sciorra, Rossellini, Gallo and Del Toro have their moments. If you haven't seen "Abel Farrara's The Funeral", don't miss it. Written by Nicolas St. John (The Addiction, China Girl, Ms. 45). Which St. John has written some of Farrara's best work as a filmmaker. Sciorra is one of the associate producers of the feature. (****/*****).

Pointless. Abysmal in every respect in my view. Looking at the cast I was really excited to see this film. What I saw was a story so pointless, acting so intense yet superficial, disjointed continuity, extremely poor, choppy editing, over-crowded effects, pointless and gratuitous violence. A truck filled with radios explodes? From what? This film assassinates the character of Italians. While Chris Penn has center stage, his character in now way had the depth of soul to be the character he depicted with excessive boredom. Aside from "Artificial Intelligence" which I view as the worst film ever, this one almost ties it. The director and the editors as well failed. Darkness for the sake of darkness,murder for film dollars. Just a terrible film.

I have always been impressed by the dramatic intensity of Abel Ferrara's films and 'The Funeral' does not fall short of any of them. The true beauty of this film lies in its characters and their emotions and relationships. The plot takes second stage but, honestly, the incredible acting performances will make you feel that a more complicated plot would be absolutely unnecessary. All the important bases of small-time mob life are covered here - God, family, revenge, lies, anger, etc. If you can sit down and watch a movie that chooses atmosphere and character over action, then I highly recommend this movie. You will be blown away.

Possibly psychotic mobster brothers Christopher Walken (as Raimundo "Ray" Tempio) and Chris Penn (as Cesarino "Chez" Tempio) gather with family for "The Funeral" of brother Vincent Gallo (Giovanni "Johnny" Tempio). Like good gangsters, they want to kill the mysterious, dark-clothed figure who shot Mr. Gallo. They pin the hit on rival crime lord Benicio del Toro (as Gaspare Spoglia); brother Gallo has been copulating with his wife three times a week. A nasty character, Mr. Walken wants to chop off Mr. del Toro's legs and slit his throat. And, Mr. Penn begins losing his marbles. But, while the hunt is on, we get to know the three brothers through flashbacks...

While the performances are all fine, the young actors in the early flashback do not match the present day brothers, who do not even remotely resemble each other. Moreover, at his brother's casket, Penn states "Johnny" died at age 22, which would put Walken, Penn, and Gallo in their early to mid-twenties. The storyline takes time to decipher, which is fine; but, it does leave a few questions unanswered. Director Abel Ferrara and Ken Kelsch contribute great style. It's a man's movie, with memorable bookend roles for Paul Hipp (as Ghouly) and Patrick McGaw (in the cooler); but, wives Isabella Rossellini (as Clara) and Annabella Sciorra (as Jean) also hit the mark.

****** The Funeral (8/28/96) Abel Ferrara ~ Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Vincent Gallo, Benicio del Toro

New York City, the 1930s. A powerful crime family is caught in a lethal crossfire between union organizers and brutal corporate bosses. Against this turbulent backdrop, the family's three street-hardened brothers and the women they love are about to be plunged into a deadly confrontation with their enemies, with each other, and with their own dark heritage of violence, madness and murder.

Although Abel Ferrara is still making films, this might be his last "big" one. All the titles he is known for, from "Ms. 45" to "The Addiction" seem to taper off after this title. Why? Certainly he did not start making bad movies, did he? (But, who knows? Even Francis Ford Coppola deteriorated.) What makes this better than the average Mafia movie is that it focuses less on the violence (though that happens), and much more on the psychology. We see these men as they see themselves, and we see that the women in their lives do not always see them in as glamorous of a light. This makes for an interesting comparison.

"The Funeral" is one of Abel Ferrara's best movies, not to say his best work besides the instant classic "King of New York". The cast is superb, and all the big names (Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Isabella Rossellini etc.) give breathtaking performances that you'll never forget. The story is intense and absolutely plausible, one can imagine that it happened right as Ferrara tells it back in the 1930's. The climax will knock you right out of your seats and will leave you gasping for breath. an undeniable masterpiece: undoubtedly 10 out of 10.

"The Funeral" tells of the aftermath of mourning and revenge which transpires following the murder of one of three brothers and mobsters. An excellent showcase for some good acting talent, "The Funeral" is woefully in need of a story. A pointless, plotless, slice-of-mob-life flick is just more of the same old "Godfather" mob stuff which goes down like so much flat beer.

Abel Ferrara ? Not a movie maker that will appeal to everyone . He`s best known for making DRILLER KILLER a movie far better than it`s given credit for and his only mainstream film is BODY SNATCHERS which is a rather unnecessary remake

THE FUNERAL hints that it wants to be mainstream because everyone loves movies about gangsters don`t they ? , and there are a couple of well known actors in it too . Alas there`s an irritating aspect to the screenplay that wants to make certain characters leftists . Why do movies seem to be under the impression that gangsters have socialist ideals ? The British small budget production FACE had this as did the classic ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA . It`s often been said that the mafia are the most sucessful capitalist concept and I`m inclined to believe that

There`s other audience unfriendly concepts to the movie , most of them being the fault of the director like graphic sex scenes , some serious violence especially at the downbeat conclusion , but the one scene that can`t fade from my mind is the scene where some of the male characters are watching a porn movie in a brothel . Young Johnny turns to the woman sitting beside him and they begin some serious french kissing . Did I mention this woman must be about 70 years old ? YUCK

It`s hardly Ferrara`s best work and it`s probably recommended that potential audience members should familarise themselves with the director`s work before watching it

Four out of ten

I think this is a very good film with a lot of values. It's another gangster movie, but one with a story I've never seen before and really enjoyed. Walken and Penn are terrific, and Del Toro shows his screen potential. See it, but not with your mother. You will definitely stay awake.

This film would have made a great gangster saga but Ferrara and writer St. John are more interested about the characters then the story. What occurs on the surface may be minimal and very uncreative but deep within you enter the souls of each character who question their values as they mourn the death of a family member. Each one carrying a dilemma to the very surprising ending. This film could have been set in any era as it deals with intelligent issues such as the complex male macho image as questioned by Sciorra's character. Another interesting piece from Ferrara who goes for the mind and leaves you silent.