Ayyyyyyyyyy. Lookat meeeee! I’m the Pope of Greenwich Village! I’m an Italian-American and I talk with my hands! The only reason to see this by-the-numbers film about knuckleheads getting in deep with the mob is for Eric Roberts’ performance. I would never call it a good performance, but it is fascinating. He. . .um. . .he doesn’t hold back. “Charlieeeeee! They took my thumb, Charlieeeeee!” Hard not to find yourself repeating it afterwards. What the hell ever happened to Eric Roberts, anyway?
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Jordan Hoffman is a New York-based writer and film critic working for The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Thrillist, Times of Israel, NY Daily News and elsewhere.
He is the host of ENGAGE: The Official Star Trek Podcast, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and challenges you to a game of backgammon.
I don’t know whatever happened to Eric Roberts — hopefully, he got a less tight pair of polyester pants and lost the perm.
This awful movie is one of the most blatant cases of Italian over-acting … and neither of these guys are Italian, which makes it even worse. What struck me when I saw it again recently was how unremittingly gay Eric Roberts’ character was, and the sub-text between his character’s and Rourke’s. I don’t mean “ha-ha” gay — I mean “let’s make love” gay.
The most blatant case of Italian over-acting you’ll ever find is the Richard Gere movie Bloodbrothers, starring Gere as the enigmatic Stoney DeCoco.
It’s hard to fathom which scene was worse, Rourke’s “get ovah hee-ah” speech to Daryl Hannah where he starts beating on everything in the apartment and making this demand … instead of walking over to her after she’s told him she’s pregnant with his child. Or Roberts’ wailing “Chawlee, they took my thumb” monologue … where he got blood all over his fabulous capris pants.
And when they were playing stickball with the kids … was “Summer Breeze” by Sinatra supposed to be playing on a boombox while Rourke, getting ready to pitch a ball to Roberts, was swaying to the music. Or was he just acting like a total fucking weirdo while the song played on the soundtrack. Because if I was a kid in that schoolyard, I would have thought, “What in the fuck is that weirdo doing on the pitcher’s mound? Is he high?”
I kinda liked the stickball scene — only because it was so goofy.
Another reason to watch this — to see Darryl Hannah before she took her acting lessons. Man! is he awful! She’s not someone I spend a lot of time thinking about, but she is usually at least decent enough to seem transparent. Here, you just wonder how many producers she blew to get the part. (She is usually sans at least one article of clothing per scene.)