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- guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday May 16 1999 20:37 BST
Once upon a time, mafia movies guaranteed that someone would end up with a horse in their bed or, even worse, a bullet to the head. Nothing personal, of course, it's just the way things were.
However, much has changed since Marlon Brando preached the mob's family values in The Godfather. This summer, moviegoers can look forward to two acting heavyweights, who achieved stardom in the Godfather trilogy, sending up their tougher-than-thou screen personas.
In Analyse This, Robert De Niro gives one of the year's funniest performances as an angst-ridden gangster who tries to cure his anxiety attacks on Billy Crystal's psychiatrist's couch. It's the perfect set-up to ridicule gangland machismo and shrink psycho-babble. 'I go fag, you die,' warns De Niro's character, who clearly has some issues to deal with.
In the romantic comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, Hugh Grant plays an art dealer who is horrified to discover his girlfriend (Jeanne Tripplehorn) has an uncle, played by James Caan, who just happens to be a mob boss. The plot thickens when Caan believes Grant's auction house could provide the perfect money laundering service.
This trend isn't new. Even Brando couldn't resist mimicking his most famous role in The Freshman (1990).
Before then Hollywood's irreverent attitude towards organised crime surfaced in the 1980s, when the mob became the butt of jokes in movies such as Married to the Mob and Wise Guys. Perhaps most bizarrely, Woody Allen's comedy Bullets Over Broadway portrayed mobster Chazz Palminteri as a frustrated playwright.
It seems Hollywood has plenty of more potent screen villains to unleash. Take your pick from a rogue's gallery including Middle East terrorists, homegrown right-wing extremists and assorted serial killers.
In truth, mafia films, whatever their merits, predictably retread the same ground: family, honour, loyalty. They're certainly ripe for attack from the funnymen. Especially since they now carry a revised moral message. Crime doesn't pay - unless it makes you laugh.
