vpa21133

Having grown up in Bensonhurst Brooklyn during the 1960s, sad to say that the characters are true to life. This is one of the few movies that captures the argumentative and violence-prone nature of that neighborhood at that time. Goodfellas is another that captured that horrible milieu.

As a youth, every disagreement among the goombahs on my block led to threatened violence, typically settled by the oldest goombah, who was also the toughest fighter. When I reached the conclusion that I was smarter then my "friends" and stopped hanging with them, eventually they sent another tough guy from up the block to beat me up. (It was a stand-off, ended when an older neighbor intervened.)

The mob keeps order by threatened or actual violence, including murder. I know of a guy from the neighborhood who served years in prison for not ratting out the source of drugs he inadvertently sold to a DEA agent. When he was released from prison, he started drinking heavily. One night he walked out of a bar at 2 am and saw a mob boss's son murder someone on the street. Shortly thereafter this guy was kidnapped, shot through the eyes and dumped in the trunk of a stolen car. So don't claim this movie is too meoodramatic or over-acted; it isn't.

And I would be remiss not to mention Joe Colombo, boss of the Colombo "famiily" and one of the founders of the Italian-American Civil Rights League, an organization founded to deny the existence of the Cosa Nostra aka Mafia. On June 28, 1971, Colombo was shot three times in the head and neck by Jerome A. Johnson, with one of the bullets hitting him in the head, at the second Italian Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle sponsored by the Italian-American Civil Rights League. Was that too melodramatic or over-acted? It actually happened.

Oh puleeaasseee this film has already been made 20 times over the last 50 years. I believe in recycling but don't waste 3-1/2 hours of my time watching elderly actors reprise old roles. Bad enough having to watch Trump hog the airwaves repeating The Apprentice. Hit man as hero? As they say in New Joisey, get the **** outta here!

This is a difficult film to like (imho) because as many other comments have noted, the characters are unsympathetic jerks. Further, I saw no chemistry among the various permutations and combinations of the four leads, nor any development of relationships. Perhaps better acting or staging could have floated this sinking ship.

The characters appear to jump into connections (I won't dignify them with the term relationships) with nothing more behind them than that they have ended up in close proximity to the other at some point. If any of you ride or have ridden a subway or crowded bus route, would you have sex with someone just because he or she happened to be standing near you one day? Exchange pleasantries, some banter supposed to be witty, lips get trembly, kiss, have sex. The concept is preposterous. Or, I missed out on a heck of a lot of potential activity back in my subway riding days! With all due respect (my better half bought this turkey for $3 at an odd-lot discount store), this had "chick flick" written all over it, confirmed by the sappy opening dirge.

In addition (as others have noted), the flashbacks and fast-forwards are not differentiated from "real time" at all, making the activities even more difficult to follow. This is worsened by the unsympathetic personalities of the leads.

Definitely, one to miss...