Chief’s Moving Picture Review

The other day I took a personal field trip downtown to the Gateway so I could subject myself to the soon to be classic: Mobsters and Mormons. I’ll never get that hour and a half back folks. Don’t get me wrong, I entered the theatre trying to keep my mind as clear and open as possible but alas. I think it just made it all the more horrifying to witness. But to be fair, I’ll first cover the things I enjoyed:

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Yep, that’s it. This film was about as entertaining as sitting on a totem pole.

The plot is extremely simple. It’s My Blue Heaven meets My Big, Fat Greek Wedding. A top dog mobster (carmine) squeals and is forced to relocate himself and his family to Salt Lake. Imagin the possibilities. The worst was the camera work, which reminded me of Cops or something. Not to mention the dubbing was actually reminiscent of a bad 70’s Kung fu film.

I recently had the opportunity to meet the Director/Screenwriter of this horrifying experience, John Moyer (The R.M., Singles Ward). I remember he mentioned that he makes films for the audience and not the critics. My opinion on his filmmaking skills don’t really add up to a whole lot because I’m not a filmmaker. However, as an audience member I was both insulted that I paid money (consider it tithing God, you bastard!) to see his film and utterly shocked that anyone would dare put it in theaters. I was insulted not because of the social satire (I was raised LDS so I get the jokes) but simply for the lack of subtlety in the actin and the script. There are very few moments wher John isn’t shoving the obvious down our throat. Wow! Mormons and mobsters are different??!! No fucking way!? I didn’t see that one coming! This clash of abstract ideas is humorous but in the end that’s all it is…humorous.

There are bried moments of subtletly that I enjoyed. In the opening wedding sequence Carmine expresses to his thug boss that “You’ve always been like a father to me.” I liked it. Good foreshadowing there. But no more than two seconds later he repeats the same damn line. Why? Don’t beat us over the head with it.

After a stagnant first act with all the poo-poo, pee-pee jokes you can muster we finally cut back to the mobsters. I had forgotten all about those guys even though they were the whole reason Carmine is all bent outta shape. They just sort of drifted off so we wouldn’t get too confused and overwhelmed with all those little complications like “plot” and “conflict”. We’d be way too busy discovering how different these two cultures are anyway.

At one momnet the remarkably forgettable big boss guy sits in his call as the stereotypical henchmen comes to visit. I honestly liked the brief moments of subtley when the big boss guy questions the henchman about “the other business.” The henchmen replies with “I’ll take care of that business.” Brilliant! That’s good writing, man. But once again neraly two seconds later the Henchmen says “Don’t worry, we’ll kill Carmine.” Duh! We know this. We may just be silly Mormons but we know how a mobster runs his “business.” And besides, don’t these mobsters know that they record the conversations in prison cells? We sure as hell do! ARRGH!

But in all honesty most of the people in the theater seemd to really enjoy themselves. If anyone is in search for a cheap laugh this movie is for them.

PS – There are a few brief moments of entertainment. One scene I liked for example is when Carmine is trying to hold down a descent job. He preactically screams at the audience, “Eight hours a day?! How do you do it?! Nevertheless, these moments are shrouded in Carmine’s constant gags and jokes. We totally forget to take him seriously and we only want to hear what kind of zinger he’s going to throw at us next. There’s no reflective time for the viewers to really understand him.

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