Truly Dreadful Film

Sadly Over-hyped

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This is a nice drama set in Brooklyn New York in the 1990's starring Geena Davis as Angie Scacciapensieri. The film opens up in the early 1970's on the neighborhood streets of Brooklyn New York where a bunch of pre-teen girls are playing their 45 records on the front porch and teasing little Angie about how they know that her wacko mom was caught dancing in the snow in nothing but her underwear and how she disappeared out of Angie's life when she was just 3 years old. All Angie has to remember her mommy is a picture she treasures of the two of them. Angie's best friend Tina (played by Aida Turturro) protects Angie from the girl bullies and then the film fast forwards to the 1990's where the two (now) ladies are still best friends working in an office.Tina is now married to the foul mouthed Jerry (played by Michael Rispoli) and they have two children. Angie is in a relationship with Vinnie (played by the late James Gandolfini) who owns his own plumbing business. Besides the three of the four actors being later connected with the 1999 television crime drama series The Sopranos, the friends and lovers all have an Italian background and stick to their own Brooklyn neighborhood. Angie discovers she is pregnant and when she tells her boyfriend Vinnie he is ecstatic and proposes marriage. This is a life changing drama in an Italian Brooklyn neighborhood not just for Angie, but also for her friends and family. One day Angie is a single lady working in a New York office and the next day she finds herself pregnant and engaged to be married to Vinnie. This is a trigger point for Angie and it brings up feelings deep inside of her that lead her to resent her own father Frank (played by Philip Bosco) and her stepmother Kathy (played by Jenny O'Hara) who raised Angie after her own mother abruptly left her at the age of three (3). Angie proceeds to push her father, stepmother, fiancée Vinnie and even her best friend Tina away. After bumping in to a stranger in a museum she starts an affair with this Irishman named Noel Riordan (played by Stephen Rea) and eventually she tells Noel that she is pregnant with her ex-fiancé's child. Noel takes it all in stride and continues his relationship with Angie throughout her nine month pregnancy.I don't want to provide a spoiler alert so I will just say that the last 30 minutes of the film is where Angie finds out to what extent her family and friends will really go to for one another. This support group gives her the inner strength to make the decisions that we all think we would also make if we found ourselves in the same circumstances. This is a good drama for Geena Davis to star in and she does a great job in the lead role as Angie. James Gandolfini's role as Vinnie the plumber (when he still had hair) shows that edgy side giving us an early peek in to his latter role as Tony Soprano that can just explode, as well as that kinder side of Tony Soprano who loves his family and will be there for them when he is needed regardless of the circumstances. Aida Turturro, Michael Rispoli, Stephen Rea, Philip Bosco and Jenny O'Hara all add depth of their respective characters to this warm and loving film Angie and all of these characters make us feel as if we are involved in their scenes. It will make you want to provide your own two cents to Angie on what she should do. One of the qualities I look for when writing a film review is if the film can keep my attention, or does the film have intermittent scenes that allow the mind to wander? Angie kept me enthralled from the get go and it wasover before I knew it some 107 minutes later. Heck even the wife stayed awake for this late night movie drama and she rated it a 7 also! I rate the film a 7 out of 10. It is a nice piece of film depicting the 1990s' lifestyle in Brooklyn New York for an Italian family classic film genre.

It will bring you to tears and make you laugh. Angie lives in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and dreams of a better life than everyone she knows. When she finds that she is pregnant by her boyfriend Vinnie, she decides that she will have the baby, but not Vinnie as a husband. This turns the entire neighborhood upside down and starts her on a journey of self discovery. This kind of sentimental character piece needs a tight focus so all of the nuances of the characters shine through. The characters in this film have a lot of depth, and that makes all the difference. I give this one a rating of 7 out of 10.

The video box cover promised hopeful viewers that the film contained inside was "a heartwarming story brimming with irrepressible fun. This was not so. We laughed at the movie, but certainly not with it. Telling the story of a hysterical, irresponsible and certainly resistable woman, this movie may be praised by critics but whatever quality they saw in it must have wound up on the cutting room floor. The characters are unlikable and obnoxious, the plot meanders without ever deciding where it wants to go, and sheer lethargy kept us from doing what we should have done five minutes into the film and shown our VCR some mercy. Do yourself a favour and avoid this mess, whatever the video box may say.

The protagonist (Geena Davis) was told she was abandoned by her mother, grew up with secrecy surrounding the whereabouts of her mother, was lied to, and felt abandonment issues that she had to deal with -- much like an adoptee. Her stepmother tried to pretend she was the mother of Gina's charactor. Geena's character left her own baby for awhile, but regretted it later. One amazing and gratifying detail for me is when the step-mother character admitted that Geena's charactor was the mother of her child and "we" (her and her husband) had no rights coming between them (which they had been trying to do). So unlike mothers in real life, this woman was allowed to reclaim her child after she dealt with her problems. It's a good movies for exploring adoption issues.