Family Enforcer (1976)

Low level mafia connected guy from New Jersey wanders back into town and asks to be set up with some work. The guy he asks the favor of is reluctant because he doesn't like his ethic of making a lot of money and then disappearing until he needs more. Eventually coming around our hero gets work and hooks up with another mob guy played by Joe Pesci. Unfortunately our hero's temper and lack of good judgment gets him some enemies and it soon becomes clear that he's his own worst enemy. Good mob movie was apparently a one shot deal from its director who died in the early 80's. It's a shame because the film has a nice sense of place lacking from most big budget films. It's the sort of thing you stumble on when channels surfing on a rainy weekend. If there is anything wrong with the film it's with our hero who is a nice guy, but clearly has a death wish since he is constantly doing things that tick people off starting with beating up a mafia don's nephew for the hell of it. Watching the film you can see he's doomed from the start and it's all his own doing so the film becomes a vigil waiting for the other shoe to drop. This doesn't mean the film is bad, its not, its just that it could have been better. (Perhaps if they had cast Joe Pesci in the lead, since he's infinitely more charismatic then the guy who was cast.

Out of all the Mafia movies i have ever seen this is one of the best for many reasons. The acting from Pesci, Cortese and Vincent. The story is one of the best ever (In the mafia genre), as it realistic. The characters are people that lots of other people can relate to. This movie is also great as it's dialogue is good. It also has very realistic fights and action scenes. This movie also launched the careers of Pesci and Vincent. If it weren't for the success of this film, Casino and Goodfellas might not have been as good as they were. Story 10/10 Acting 9/10 Realism 10/10OVERALL 10/10My fave Mafia movies are1: Goodfellas 2: Casino 3: The Godfather Trilogy 4: Family Enforcer (The Death Collector) 5: The Sopranos (I know it isn't a movie)

First off let me say that this is probably in my opinion one of the 10 most underrated movies since this came out in 72. I absolutely loved this movie, it's very urban, gritty, no real Hollywood glam added to it.. you can actually feel for all of the characters in here, i love the blood just splattering abound in here. Joe Pesci was pretty good in here, but to me it seems like he was definitely outdone by the lead character Joe Cortese, now i don't know anything about him , but boy can he really act.. I believe this movie is probably true, because living in New Jersey,, living close to Philly, you here this kinda thing all the time. i think that if the movie had a bigger budget , and say Robert deniro as jerry's boss you would have a perfect movie, but hey who am i to argue, i was so engrossed by this film, that it is already up there in my mind, with Mean Streets. I wish Hollywood would go back to this urbanized, gritty display of movie making: it would serve them very well to do so. this movie is a great drama with great actors in it. and i highly recommend it to anyone.

This is not the best movie in the world, however, it does come in handy when one is looking for a way to waste time. For a cheesy 70s lowbudget mafia flick, it covers all the bases it needs to and nothing more. It doesn't need to. The best way to view it is to not expect much. This way you will be surprised at how decent a film this really is. The plot is simple. The guy becomes an enforcer for the mob, crosses his boss and his boss comes after him. The acting isn't great but it's far from terrible and the action sequences, while sometimes laughable, are really not too shabby. I would love to get more films like this. They are just very hard to find. Lowbudget cheese doesn't always make for a bad film.