SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

(Some Spoilers) The film "Dinner Rush" comes across like a combination of the Food Channel's Guy Fieri "Diners Drive-ins & Dives" and the "Sopranos". We have successful Tribeca restaurateur Louis Carpo, Danney Aiello, being hassled by these two mobsters from Queens Carmen & Paolo, Mike McGlone & Alex Corrado, who are trying to muscle their way into Louis' five star Italian Restaurant "The Trattoria" which has been in the Carpo family for some three generations. These two murderous thugs go so far as offing in a mob hit Louis' good friend and partner in the "Trattoria" Enrico Coventie, Fran Borgiorno, just to show him that they mean business. The business that they want is to become part owners of the eatery even though they, despite stuffing their faces with fine Italian food and wines, know nothing at all about the restaurant business!The two mobster have an ace up their sleeves in getting Louis to go along with their efforts to get part, and later all, of his business by having his compulsive gambler son and second or #2 chef at the "Trattoria" Ducan, Kirk Acevedo, in their hip pockets for $13,000.00 in gambling debts. By Paolo & Carmen using Ducan's gambling as a way to get to Louis has them feel he'll pay them off in making them partners in his eating establishment. This all backfires on them with Louis taking the 13 grand out of the till and paying them off in order to get the two mobsters off his and Duncan's back.It's obvious right from the start that Poalo & Carmen only want to get hold of Louis' restaurant which is knocking them, the customers, dead with the mind boggling dishes put out by Louis' #1 son and top chef in the joint Udo, Edwardo Ballerini, a man who loves cooking his dishes as much as Paolo and Carmen love eating them. Running the kitchen like a hard as nails US Marine Drill Sergeant Udo won't tolerate the slightest infraction of the Culinary Code of Ethics! We see earlier in the movie Udo can one of his cooks on the spot in him dicing , a major violation of the Code, instead of chopping chives. Udo for his part feels that he's being short changed by his dad in not being made a partner in the restaurant, which both Paolo & Carmen want to be, even though his dad thinks that his dishes are just out of this world and are filling the place to capacity every night!***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Louis being the man of peace, and having superhuman self restraint, that he is was more then willing to give up his bookie operation to Paolo & Carmen in order to keep them out of his life and restaurant but when they hit his best friend Enrico and then shook down #2 son Duncon that's when they went too far much too far with him. And that's when Louis decided to pay them off big time using his beloved restaurant "The Trattoria" as a trap in luring those two rats to their deaths!Very probably the very best of the many Mafia restaurant mob hit-jobs movies that's a lot like the real hit on gangster Dutch "The Dutchman" Schultz back in October 1935 in a Newark New Jersey spaghetti joint. Louis Carpo at first tries to reason with the smug and arrogant Queens thugs who seemed to have greatly underestimated him in his non violent attitude towards them. All Louis wanted was to talk things over and come to some reasonable decision with Paolo and Carmen but the two thought that they had him boxed into a corner. They didn't realize that he set them up right from the start and in the process had them stuff themselves, like a last meal for a convict about to be executed, before he had the boom lowered on them!

There's something about this film that made me fall in love with it from the moment I gazed at its delicious looking poster and up until the very last frame. It's a mob film with a few drops of revenge and an overdose of family relationships – but much more important – it's a film about a gourmet Italian restaurant, and about people who love to dream, talk, eat and kill over its ingredients. Someone in Dinner Rush's production unit sure knows his way around the kitchen, and director Bob Giraldi delivers this passion and emotion throughout the happenings of a long, cold lonely night at this New York placed restaurant. John Corbett, previously known from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Sex and the City fame delivers a dark and disturbing performance that winds up well on this tasty home-made thriller. Bon appetite!

I am a hedonist and believe a film should entertain though I would not necessarily dis a film that only educated. Dinner Rush entertains but I suspect it would especially appeal to those of us who enjoyed the NYC restaurant scene of the eighties and nineties and did not take its pretensions too seriously. The flick maybe be limited in its appeal to, dare I say, NYC yuppies with a sense of humor. Within its context, though, it works very well. So you can give it an 8 or a 3 depending on where you come from. The flick's characters' behavior is not to far from what I knew and appreciated back then. The movie captures a slice of life from a time and place in our recent past. Personally I highly recommend it with the caveats stated above.

I found this gem in the bargain bin at Wal Mart. How it got there, I don't know. The film stars Danny Aiello (Do The Right Thing), Mike McGlone (The Brothers McMullen) and John Corbett (Sex and the City). Set in the fast paced New York Italian restaurant "Gigino", we follow a restaurant owner (Aiello) and his son, the head chef, on a busy Friday night. The film is comprised of witty banter from different tables in the restaurant, following a uptight art critic, a mafiosi from Queens, a food critic and a real mystery man in Corbett's character. The staff has to deal with a power outage, whiny tables and a line chef who is into a bookie 35 grand. The film carries itself with panache every second, and no matter how often I see this picture, be it on DVD or on IFC, I just can't get enough. Check it out!