Main Cast: Jay Mohr, Billy Burke, Christina Applegate, Pam Gidley, Olympia Dukakis
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 84 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Satirist Jim Arahams returned with this comedy spoofing the Godfather trilogy, and other films and TV, including Jurassic Park, Lord of the Dance, and Barney. The opening emulates a Saul Bass sequence with Anthony Cortino (Jay Mohr) in a flight amid flames much like Robert De Niro in the Casino credits. After flashbacks go back in time to Sicily, Coppola/Scorsese references abound. Young Vincenzo (Jason Fuchs) travels to America to later become the clumsy chief of organized crime (with the late Lloyd Bridges as the aging Vincenzo) with his sons -- short-fused Joey (Billy Burke) and educated Anthony. Tony's WASP fiancee is Diane (Christina Applegate), recalling Diane Keaton in the Coppola films. During the wedding, assassins try to do away with Don Vincenzo, who's hospitalized, so Tony sets out to gain revenge for the murder attempt. In Vegas, Tony gets involved with showgirl Pepper (Pamela Gidley). When betrayals begin, can violence be far behind? This was Lloyd Bridges' final movie, and the film is dedicated to him. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
Utterly stupid and classless, this slapstick farce is a barrel of fun for those who can check their brains at the door, and will probably be enjoyed by anyone with a taste for Mob movies and mockery. Lampooning every previous organized crime drama but with especially large doses of The Godfather, this comedy from director Jim Abrahams (of the infamous Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team affectionately referred to as "ZAZ"), piles on cliches, winking double entendres, and dim-bulb gags. While the title promises to cleverly zing the profligate number of drawing room tearjerkers based on the novels of Jane Austen, the film's more concerned with sending up the classic Francis Ford Coppola trilogy and a few titles from Martin Scorsese, particularly GoodFellas. The result is a loopy, spirited mess of a movie that makes the work of Mel Brooks seem as tightly structured and artistically valid as a Japanese haiku. To lacerate such a groan-inducing work with criticism is pointless, however; the Weird Al Yankovic vibe of such a project makes it immune to thoughtful consideration. Viewers will laugh out loud, and loathe themselves for it, especially when they discover that Jane Austen's Mafia! (1998) was the final film of likeable screen legend Lloyd Bridges. The horror. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Lloyd Bridges - Vincenzo Cortino; Jason Fuchs - Young Vincenzo; Joe Viterelli - Clamato; Tony Lo Bianco - Marzoni; Don Cornelius - Himself; Ursula Burton - Guess How Many Fingers Gambler
Credit
Ann Harris - Art Director, Greg Papalia - Art Director, Jack B. Bernstein - Associate Producer, Jennifer Gibgot - Associate Producer, Jackie Burch - Casting, Michael McManus - Co-producer, Greg Norberg - Co-producer, Matthew Rowland - First Assistant Director, Jim Abrahams - Director, Ernie F. Orsatti - Second Unit Director, Terry Stokes - Editor, Peter Abrams - Executive Producer, Robert L. Levy - Executive Producer, Gianni Frizzelli - Composer (Music Score), William Elliott - Production Designer, Pierre Letarte - Cinematographer, Bill Badalato - Producer, Colin de Rouin - Set Designer, Jerie Kelter - Set Designer, Jason Weil - Set Designer, David Ronne - Sound/Sound Designer, Ernie F. Orsatti - Stunts Coordinator, Sam Nicholson - Special Effects Supervisor, Michael McManus - Screenwriter, Jim Abrahams - Screenwriter, Greg Norberg - Screenwriter, Don McCuaig - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Norval D. Crutcher III - ADR Editor
Like The Godfather: Part II, the narrative of Mafia! consists of a series of flashbacks interwoven with the main plot. Jay Mohr plays Tony, the son of a prominent Mafia don, Vincenzo Armani Windbreaker Cortino (Bridges). As the film opens, Tony introduces the main thread when he exits a Vegas casino and walks to his car, accompanied by a voiceover explaining his philosophy of life. When he starts the car, it explodes.
The story then regresses more than half a century to describe the boyhood of Tony's father, Vincenzo, who was born in Italy, the clumsy son of a Sicilian postman. One day, while making a delivery for his father, Vincenzo trips and the parcel bursts open, revealing a strange white powder. The parcel's recipient, concluding that the delivery boy has seen too much, tracks Vincenzo to a street fair, where he kills his father; the boy, however, escapes to America, where he grows to young manhood, marries, and struggles with poverty before finally finding his destiny as a mafia boss.
The film then visits the recent past; Tony has just returned from the Korean War and is bringing his idealistic Protestant girlfriend, Diane (Applegate) to meet his family and friends at his big brother Joey's wedding reception (A parody of Connie Corleone's wedding in the beginning of "Godfather I"). During the festivities, however, Vincenzo is shot 47 times in an attempted hit and nearly dies. Tony avenges the attack, then goes into hiding in Las Vegas, where he becomes a casino manager. Diane leaves him, saying he's abandoned the peaceful ideals of his youth, and adding that she'll never be anything to his Sicilian family but "that Protestant chick who never killed anyone."
Vincenzo recovers from his 47 gunshot wounds and visits Las Vegas, where he officially names Tony his successor; Joey, furious at being passed over, is told "you get Wisconsin." The Don then returns home, where he falls victim to his five-year-old grandson, Chucky, who assassinates him by spraying him with malathion (parody of Vito Corleone's heart attack, "Godfather I"). Meanwhile, Tony's casino is a great success until he meets a femme fatale, Pepper Gianini, hired by a man named Cesar Marconi as part of a deep-laid plan to distract him from his duties and to drive a wedge between him and Joey. The film's time sequence returns to the present after Tony catches Joey and Pepper cavorting in a hotel room together and walks out in disgust - only to have his car explode.
Tony is horribly but temporarily disfigured, and attends his father's funeral in a wheelchair, where he spots the killers when he sees little Chucky taking a payoff. He decides, however, to postpone vengeance until he can win back Diane's love and put his life in order. Diane has by this time become President of the United States, and is on the brink of declaring world peace when Tony goes looking for her. He persuades her to put world peace on the back burner until after their wedding. During the ceremony, with the help of Vincenzo's mother (Dukakis), several henchmen, and an Eskimo, he settles the family's accounts in an orgy of slaughter (filmed similar to the end of "Godfather I"), even arranging the harpooning of Barney the purple dinosaur by way of a bonus.
