Jane Austen's Mafia
| Mafia! | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Jim Abrahams |
| Produced by |
Peter Abrams Robert L. Levy |
| Written by | Jim Abrahams Greg Norberg Michael McManus |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Gianni Frizzelli |
| Cinematography | Pierre Letarte |
| Edited by | Terry Stokes |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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84 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million |
| Box office | $30.2 million |
Mafia!, also known as Jane Austen's Mafia!, is a 1998 comedy film directed by Jim Abrahams and starring Jay Mohr, Lloyd Bridges (in one of his final films), Olympia Dukakis and Christina Applegate.
The film spoofs Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather series and various other mafia films, notably Martin Scorsese's Casino. It also parodies films in other genres, ranging from Forrest Gump to Il Postino and The English Patient.
Like The Godfather Part II, the narrative of Mafia! consists of a series of flashbacks interwoven with the main plot. Tony is the son of a prominent Mafia don, Vincenzo Armani Windbreaker Cortino. As the film opens, Tony introduces the main thread when he exits a Vegas casino and walks to his car, accompanied by a voiceover explaining his philosophy of life. When he starts the car, it explodes.
The story then regresses more than half a century to describe the boyhood of Tony's father, Vincenzo, who was born in Italy, the clumsy son of a Sicilian postman. One day, while making a delivery for his father, Vincenzo trips and the parcel bursts open, revealing a strange white powder. The parcel's recipient, concluding that the delivery boy has seen too much, tracks Vincenzo to a street fair, where he kills his father. The boy escapes to America, where he grows to young manhood, marries, and struggles with poverty before finally finding his destiny as a mafia boss.
The film then visits the recent past; Tony has just returned from the Korean War and is bringing his idealistic Protestant girlfriend, Diane, to meet his family and friends at his big brother Joey's wedding reception (a parody of Connie Corleone's wedding in the beginning of The Godfather). During the festivities, however, Vincenzo is shot 47 times in an attempted hit and nearly dies. Tony announces his intention to kill Gorgoni, a drug lord with whom Vincenzo had refused to do business before the attack. Diane leaves him, saying he's abandoned the peaceful ideals of his youth, and adding that she'll never be anything to his Sicilian family but "that Protestant chick who never killed anyone." Tony avenges the attack, then goes into hiding in Las Vegas, where Cesar Marzoni offers him the opportunity to manage his casino, The Peppermill. Tony accepts and his casino is a great success until he meets a femme fatale, Pepper Gianini, hired by Marzoni as part of a deep-laid plan to distract him from his duties and to drive a wedge between him and Joey.
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