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Friends and Family - 10/3/03 - 87m - DVD
Greg
Lauren - Steven Torcelli
Christopher Gartin - Danny Russo
Rebecca Creskoff - Jenny Patrizzi
Director: Kristen Coury
Screenplay by: Joseph Triebwasser
Trailer
on iFilm.com
JEF
I have to fess up… I was given this film on DVD to review.
I did not spend my own money to rent or buy this film. But even though
I didn’t really loose anything (other than time from my Friday night),
I still disliked this movie.
Storyline: Stephen (Greg Lauren) and Danny (Christopher
Gartin) have something to hide from their parents… Not the fact
that they are gay, but that they are working as bodyguards for a local
mafia kingpin. It’s Stephen’s dad’s birthday, and his
mother decides that it would be a great gift to have his father visit
him in NY for his birthday as a surprise visit. So now, Danny and Stephen
are going to throw a real party, to support the charade that they are
in the catering business. Also throw in some side stories about the daughter
of the mafia boss is getting married. The groom’s parents are also
coming to town to visit to meet the "family", and it so happens
that they are part of a crazy militia unit who plans to somehow overtake
NYC.
I just didn’t like the humor nor storyline, or acting from this
movie. I had seen the trailer online, and thought, it looked funny, but
unfortunately it fell in the category, where the clips in the trailer
were the funniest parts of the movie. I think the storyline had a good
potential, but it just fell short in the execution.
There were a lot of typical gay stereotypes in the film. Especially when
the other mob guys were trying to act like gay waiters for the catering
business. For some reason, they felt that since the two owners were supposed
to be gay, that they would only hire gay waiters. Some of that was funny,
but also a bit sad because it made fun of the gay stereotypes.
The comedy was just a sort of screwball comedy, where the parents were
always sort of clueless, and after about 1-2 jokes like this, it just
wasn’t amusing anymore.
I do admit too that I’m not a big fan of the Will and Grace TV series,
and this movie reminded me a lot of this TV show.
The only actress that I liked in this film was Rebecca Creskoff who played
the roll of Jenny Patrizzi. She was the most believable character in the
film.
It was also interesting to see Meshach Taylor in this film… you
may remember that he had a re-occurring role in the TV show “Designing
Women”.
Another item in the film that had my interest was that one of the “thugs”
looked like he could have been a younger twin to Burt Young, who played
Paulie in the original Rocky film. I thought it might have even been Young’s
son, but I could not find a matching name for his character in the list
of credits (perhaps he changed his name?).
Other than that, I’d say to skip this film… even if it’s
given to you. Unless you are a fan of Will and Grace, then perhaps you
may enjoy this comedy.
Jef
