‘Mafia Mamma’ Review: Mafia Miss

metroweekly.com:

Cocaine Bear, or see limbs, heads, and a face torn off by Nicolas Cage’s Prince of Darkness in Renfield. Funny thing is, those films actually elicit laughs by flaunting gruesome violence that, while outlandish and in some cases flat-out gross, fits the circumstances and gonzo energy that rules those joints from start to finish.Audiences for the seemingly breezy mob action-comedy Mafia Mamma (★★☆☆☆), however, might really not expect to see Toni Collette — starring as suburban American mom Kristin, tapped to succeed her deceased Italian grandfather as the head of a Calabrian crime family — plunge a stiletto heel into some guy’s eye, then wriggle the heel around in the socket good and deep before gouging the eyeball out and watching it roll across the floor.Director Catherine Hardwicke, of Twilight and Thirteen fame, working from a script by TV writers Debbie Jhoon and J.

Michael Feldman, never nails the tone of this genre mashup, landing further towards the action end of the action-comedy spectrum than this lightweight, and plainly implausible, plot can truly withstand.Of course, it’s ludicrous that, in the midst of a deadly war with the rival Romano family, headed by seductive boss Fabrizio (Eduardo Scarpetta), Kristin’s gramps, Don Balbano (Alessandro Bressanello), would entrust generations of family business to an unassuming copywriter he doesn’t know.But we might just relax and enjoy the outrageous ride, given the lush Italian scenery, and the presence of national treasure Monica Bellucci as Don Balbano’s most trusted general, Bianca.

Tasked with orienting Kristin to the ways of the mafia, Bianca, very much the straight man in that buddy pairing, would appear the obvious choice to succeed the boss.The movie works its.