The new film “Mafia Mamma” looks like a gangster comedy on the surface. But deep down, it wants to be one of those feel-good movies about a woman finding herself during a trip to Italy.
Toni Collette plays Kristin, who’s going through the middle-aged blues. She has nervously sent her son off to college; is dissed at work by her male colleagues; and just caught her husband dropping his pants for a younger woman.
But then she is summoned to her grandfather’s funeral in Rome, and it seems like the perfect opportunity to live out that self-actualization best-seller of 2006 - “Eat, Pray Love” - except instead of “love” Kristin is using a more basic word.
Also, the praying mostly involves hoping she won’t get whacked, after Kristin is told she’s expected to take over grandpa’s criminal empire.
What’s a gal to do, when her only knowledge of the “Godfather” movies involves a quick scan of Wikipedia?
Collette carries the movie, playing a character who just wants to stop and taste the gelato. Ultimately, though, she can fall back on her suburban-mom survival instincts; her ability to go ballistic with a high-heeled shoe; and the wise counsel of her consigliere, Bianca (played by Monica Bellucci, who looks like she hasn’t aged a week since appearing in the “Matrix” sequels.)
Our heroine proves that you can preside over a gangland summit conference and still have Muffin Mondays!
Director Catherine Hardwicke was discovered 20 years ago at Sundance with the film “Thirteen.” Hardwicke and the movie’s three writers have a knack for candid, funny gal-pal dialogue.
Against that, the grunting, testosterone-driven, bullet-headed, neck-tattooed male mafiosos don’t stand a chance. There’s a certain amount of death and dismemberment in the film, but it’s not on the level of “Scarface”—more like Luca Brasi’s Halloweeen House of Horrors.
I’m giving “Mafia Mamma” four cannolis out of five.