Friends and Family (2002)
Runtime: 87 mins
Theatrical Release: May 16, 2003 Limited
Synopsis:
Stephen and Danny are a gay male couple who are enforcers for a New York Mafia family. Stephen's parents, who know that their son is gay but not that he works for the Mafia, decide to pay a surprise visit, sending Stephen and Danny into a panic. Hilarious complications ensue, as an ever expanding...
Stephen and Danny are a gay male couple who are enforcers for a New York Mafia family. Stephen's parents, who know that their son is gay but not that he works for the Mafia, decide to pay a surprise visit, sending Stephen and Danny into a panic. Hilarious complications ensue, as an ever expanding crazy-quilt of characters adds to the fun.
"Friends and Family" is a seamless and exuberant blend of the witty screwball comedies of the 1930s with the riotous unpredictability of French farce. Gorgeously shot in lavish urban settings, "Friends and Family" is the independent film that doesn't look like an independent film. Blessed with an expert cast including both seasoned veterans and exciting newcomers, "Friends and Family" revives a bygone tone of elegance and urbanity and weds it to an up-to-the-minute sensibility that is very much of today.
Presiding over the mayhem are Tony Lo Bianco as mob boss Victor Patrizzi, Greg Lauren and Christopher Gartin as Stephen and Danny, Beth Fowler ("Sister Act") as the force of nature otherwise known as Stephen's mother, Tovah Feldshuh ("A Walk on the Moon") as a midwestern housewife to whom there is more than meets the eye, familiar comic actors Edward Hibbert, Meshach Taylor and Louis Zorich and, in her first screen role in forty years, Anna Maria Alberghetti as Stella Patrizzi.
Genre: Comedies
Starring: Tony Lo Bianco, Greg Lauren, Christopher Gartin, Tovah Feldshuh, Rebecca Creskoff
Screenwriter: Joseph Triebwasser
Producer: Kristen Coury, Joseph Triebwasser, Linda Moran
Composer: Kurt Hoffman
DVD Info
Release:
Oct 21, 2003
DVD Features:
- Region 0
- Keep Case
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- Dolby Digital Stereo - English
Additional Release Material:
- Outtakes
- Audio Commentary
- Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Features:
- Scene Access
- Interactive Menus
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
Which is worse? Lame jokes about gays or lame jokes about the mob?
You haven't lived until you've seen a bunch of straight goombas taking a crash course in swish history, the better to pose as employees of a catering company.
Is the movie finding its jokes in subverting the stereotypes or in the stereotypes themselves?
Makes the clobbering minds behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding seem the apotheosis of subtlety and nuance by comparison.
A passably entertaining comedy of accretion that doesn't amount to much.
There's no rhythm or style to any of it, just the dismal feeling that the filmmakers have seen La Cage Aux Folles and The Godfather too many times.
An overloaded, slow-moving series of predictable jokes and forced situations.
First-timer Coury's fast pace can't outrun Joseph Triebwasser's predictable script, saddled with mobster clichés and queer stereotypes.
the making of Friends and Family must have been more than watching it, but not much more.
"The Sopranos" meet "La Cage Aux Folles," with a heavy and happy emphasis on humor which camps up the gay stereotypes.
Never thought I'd say this about a film, but it's just not gay enough. Wait to rent it.
Wants very much to mimic the screwball comedies of the forties with a gay twist, but the script and direction are simply too clumsy to carry it off.
The movie is slick, the boys are gorgeous, and most of it is innocent fun, but the romp is spoiled by the subplot in very bad taste.
Despite their missteps, first-timers Kristen Coury, as director, and writer Joseph Triebwasser create enough silliness to keep things amusing.
Director Kristen Coury has made a technically polished first film, but her sense of comic timing and sexual politics is strictly borscht belt.
Related Forums
by: Schwook 3/27/03


Top Critic