Set on the streets of New York's Little Italy, this dramatic series of character studies chronicles the lives and relationships between a disparate pair of Italian American cousins. Both of them want to leave the poverty of ghetto life, but each takes a dramatically different route when one of them joins the mob and the other accidentally impregnates his girlfriend. When the young gangster gets into deep trouble, the other must reevaluate his goals and his true feelings about his family. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
lost interest.
Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts play two Italian cousins, Charlie and Paulie, who run afoul of both the police and local mob boss
Burt Young in their New York neighborhood when a safe-cracking scheme backfires. Charlie, much like
Harvey Keitel's character of the same name in
Martin Scorsese's
Mean Streets, is a dapper hanger-on at the edge of gangsterdom, while Paulie, much like the Robert DeNiro character in the same film, is a moronic, womanizing loser for whom his inexplicably devoted cousin must account in the end. Thin at best, the plot comes second to the study of character; unfortunately, the characterization is uniformly two-dimensional. The filmmakers seem more interested in ethnic stereotypes than a story. Incidentally, Italians are identified by their gold chains, poor table manners and wild gesticulations, while Irishmen are characterized as cheap conniving boozers, and WASPs can be picked out by their taste for canned soup and soft white bread. The atmospheric soundtrack (including several appropriate tracks by
Frank Sinatra is helpful but not enough to carry this fatally flawed film. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide