Married to the Mob (1988)

At the 15 minute mark in the movie, Alex Baldwin gets killed in the Fantasia Motel room by Tony. If you watch the TV that is on in the room, GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON (1960), is playing. Mark Forest is shown in this movie without actually being in it. They show the scenes where he is fighting the bear. Larry Anderson, Canada.

In my attempts to catch up with films I did not see during their original theatrical release, I have reached the point of viewing "Married to the Mob", a film that I have heard about, but have never seen until to-day, some 22 years post-release. Was in no hurry to see it, and did not know what to expect. On the VHS cover it was called "...Godfather on laughing gas"...by one reviewer. Well, it was hardly that intense. The comedy in this film is rather subtle for the most part...because this film is not necessarily populated by comedians. But...I was pleasantly surprised. Michelle Pfeiffer gave a pretty good performance as a vulnerable mob wife who is, very deep inside, a decent caring person. Her husband is whacked by a mob boss, who immediately begins to make moves on Pfeiffer, despite the fact that he is married. His wife is a jealous, insecure basket case who would rather see him dead than see him with another woman. Pfeiffer moves away and tries to start all over...but to not much avail. But she does not know that the mob boss is the target of the FBI and other agencies who want to nail him...and at first they wanted to also nail her, until she unknowingly falls for one of the agents who discovers the truth about her innocence. The film has its moments, and I guess there are some funny moments in this piece of celluloid, but not enough to really qualify it as a "comedy". No side-splitting humor, just funny characters and situations that are not fully taken advantage of. Pfeiffer's portrayal is one of the reasons to watch the film...and the jealous wife of the mob boss has to be seen to be believed. Not a bad flick overall, and I did not think I was going to like it at all. But I did like it...mind you, I said "Like"...not "Love". It is a worthwhile watch...and you don't need to be "Married to the Mob" to have a little fun...thank goodness it has not come to that just yet.

A movie sometimes, actually, most of the time, needs a nudge in the right casting direction. For Married to the Mob, we have Michelle Pfeiffer and Dean Stockwell in two big roles, and others for Matthew Modine and Mercedes Ruehl to sink their teeth into, too. Each actor takes over the role in his or her own way, and makes these characters into well-rounded people. The key for Jonathan Demme is this: people. They're not simply cartoon figures in a farce, but like in a good ol' screwball comedy from the days of Cary Grant, we got a premise and story that begs for actors who are so smart that they can get playing dumb, or just off-kilter or a little deranged. When we see Pfeiffer here, we believe that she's at a crossroads in her life, and she doesn't play it for laughs. Instead, she lets others around her go more over the top. In another story, she would be just as believable as an uncertain widow with a past she'd rather forget.And yes, Dean Stockwell is here in another gob-smackingly good acting gig (he even got an unlikely supporting actor nod for it). There's something about the guy that is just a little creepy, not really his fault, per-say, except that it's something in his eyes, his mannerisms, the way he'll glance at a character he doesn't trust or has something really to say to. He did this perfectly in his one scene in Blue Velvet, and to a more restrained extent in Tucker The Man & His Dream. Here, however, he goes to town as a mob-boss caricature, but he also doesn't do ALL of the heavy lifting. He is still subtle compared to Ruehl's turn as Russo's wife, who has insane jealousy (and rightfully so, perhaps, if not so far as she goes), and is so over the top that she does her best to chew scenery every which way she can.So then, with a good premise, and some fine supporting actors (Alec Baldwin has a few decent moments too), what's the problem? I think, perhaps, Demme wasn't always sure how to take the comedy where it needed to go. The script has the characters playing up behavior, which works well when, for example, Modine's "Mike Smith" is caught in a rock and a hard place in going out on a date with Angela. But other set-pieces sort of fall flat, and the ending is unsatisfying (especially irritating is Demme's decision to put in deleted clips from the film in the end credits, his way of doing 'outtakes'). And some of the dialog is over-cooked, making the actors strain to make it credible consistently.But Married to the Mob is fun within a certain frame of mind. It plays up some clichés like it's going out of style (which is sort of did) and leaves out others, and you may enjoy seeing the actors enjoying themselves in the scenes. It's a lighthearted affair, with touches of appropriate mob violence, and David Byrne of the Talking Heads doing the music!

This isn't bad, considering. That is, considering that it's still ANOTHER comedy thriller about the Mafia. The men lust after each other's wives and girl friends, drive monstrous cars, wear splashy suits and two-toned shoes, are dutifully sad at the funerals of their own victims, have mothers who bawl over them, pack pistols, move everywhere in squads, and are haunted by the FBI. The women are friendly but keep a wary eye on their men. They wear their hair in curly fright wigs, sport rings with stones the size of Plymouth rock, are covered in bangles, and visit the beauty salons daily. Everybody speaks with a working-class New York accent. When, if ever, will this genre run out of steam? When will it dwindle to a palpitating point and vanish for another generation? Alec Baldwin is doing Dean Stockwell's girl friend and when Stockwell finds out he disposes of Baldwin in a spritzbad. Stockwell then contracts a case of the hots for Baldwin's widow, Michelle Pfeiffer, and pursues her even as she tries to escape to a crummy flat in Queens and establish an anonymous existence for herself and her boy. At the same time, Stockwell's wife, Mercedes Ruehl, is having epileptiform seizures over the fancy that Stockwell is doing Pfeiffer. Meanwhile, Mathew Modine is an FBI undercover agent who is bugging Pfeiffer's apartment to get evidence on Stockwell and insinuating himself into her life and -- well, it all leads to a climactic shoot out in one of those giant and thoroughly vulgar Miami hotels with multi-room suites the color of moonstones.It all comes together pretty well. There is no credit for dialog coach, though maybe there should have been. Michelle only blows it once, when she asks Modine if he would like "something to eat." It should have been "sump'n," not "something." Most of the acting credit goes to Mercedes Ruehl as Stockwell's pistol-packing wife. Hers is the most flamboyant performance in a flamboyant role in a flamboyant picture.All the more applause is due to the cast who are not named DeNiro, Pacino, Pesci, DeVito, Spinelli, Liota, Bracco, or Gandolfini. The appointment -- the accents, the gestures, the expressions -- are by now so familiar that they can be easily imitated even by Italian-Americans."'EY -- whadda ya tink, we're all giadruls heah? Fugeddabout it."