not horrible nor great
... View MoreIt really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
... View MoreVery good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
... View MoreOne of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
... View MoreI re watched this recently, and just shook my head. Putting aside the overacting that border-lined on caricature, and many poor attempts at creating "atmosphere", The Last Don II made the unforgivable omission of having little to no focus on eating! This is a crucial element to any mob movie, any movie about Italian-American culture in general for that matter.Where were the sausage and peppers,the spaghetti with the "Sunday gravy"? How could this be omitted. Meals are also an important element of setting someone up to be whacked. In movies, and historically, wise guys are often "hit" while sitting down to dinner. This is part of the reason so much gusto goes into eating; because a wise guy knows that any meal may be his last, so, one may as well enjoy that meal to its fullest!On another note, I found it amusing just how Canadian this production was. I didn't need to see the CN Tower in the background, or to read the credits. As a Canadian who has grown up watching many lukewarm tax credited productions, you can just tell!
... View MoreI caught "The Last Don II" on the channel True Entertainment (an offshoot of the True Movies channels, which always show old and crappy American TV movies) the other night, when my mum wanted to watch it, as she had seen the first "Last Don" series many years ago, and was curious to see how they had continued it. We were both disappointed. Why? Because "Last Don II" is actually a comedy. It may not be sold as one, but believe me, it really really really IS. For one thing, the music for TLD2 sounds like the spoof "Godfather" music that Alf Clausen always does in The Simpsons whenever Fat Tony and his crew appear in it (which is ironic, considering that Joe Mantegna - the voice of Fat Tony himself - appears in this too, as part of some outlandish dream sequences). And who composed the music for this? None other than Angelo Badalamenti, the man who gave us such memorable and inventive music in his collaborations with David Lynch. For shame. And then there's the acting. Is there any? Very little, it turns out. Most of the cast members are as wooden as an elm tree. (This isn't helped by the presence of both Kirstie Alley AND Patsy Kensit, who are both the dampest of squibs in an ocean of damp squibs in this series.) But a few of the cast who emerge unscathed from this include a very young Alison Pill (who deserved better material, but thankfully went on to be extraordinary in "In Treatment," "Milk" and "Scott Pilgrim"), Jason Isaacs (HELLO TO JASON ISAACS!) and one cast member who I thought was Stephen Root, but apparently isn't, but who near the series' end breaks out through the dull dirge that has gone before, and realises that he's in a comedy, and so acts accordingly by going completely over the top of OTT...and then they throw him off the top of a building. (Boo!) And then there's the death scenes, which are tragically mishandled. How is it possible that scenes involving a man getting crushed by a shipping container, a woman being blown up by a bomb in a box, a man being strangled in a prison cell, and so on, be the most hilarious parts of the whole series? It's amazingly awful, and breathtakingly bad. It's almost the worst thing I've ever seen...but I've also happened to see David Lynch's "Wild At Heart", which thus far remains the worst film I've ever seen. Anyway, you've been warned. Only watch "Last Don II" if you're viewing as a comedy, and have a steady stream of alcohol to numb the pain. (Watch with friends, as well, for maximum enjoyment!) =))
... View More"The Last Don (Part I)" is not a spectacle but at least it's a very decent gangster film. Part II is a complete disaster, filled with a ridiculous plot, shallow (and highly unconvincing) characters, and poor acting from the likes of Miss Patsy Kensit.The plot is nothing new: the head of the mafia family dies, the good nephew Cross, whose wife is murdered, comes back to the family and takes control of the family business. The film tries to make Cross a tragic hero being haunted by the past (his dreaming of his dead father), and portrays him as an angel being forced to become a mafia boss. We repeatedly see him showing "mercy" at those who betray him, yet as soon as he walks away, his henchmen always finish the job for him. Is the film trying to tell us that Cross is, after all, innocent of (some of) the crimes, that it's his henchmen, but not him, who are truly evil? Give us a break.It is easy for Kristie Alley's character to gain our sympathy. After all, her husband and son are killed by her own family members. Her hatred towards her family (she spits and attacks the Don's dead body) is perfectly understandable, but one really wonders why she never leaves them. Instead, she cries every day, curses every one, and has no problem living on the expenses of her family which she detests, and retires to her little bedroom in the family house every night. She seeks consolation in the priest and falls in love with him, and when her family intervenes and uses the bishop to persuade the priest to give her up, she goes home and returns to her normal life of crying and cursing. Perhaps she is meant to be a doomed woman, unable to break away from the "evil clutches", but it is naive to assume that she's a totally innocent victim. There is no way that she can get away from the responsibility for causing her own sufferings.The most incredibly pathetic character in the film must be the Austrian film star Dirk von Schelberg, obviously modelled on "Arnold". Dirk, with his very blond hair, fake German accent and unnecessary affection (to Claudia) in the public, is meant to be a contrast to his scheming, black-haired and cold-blooded Italian family-in-law. His character is completely hollow, and his presence (making a film called "The Fumigator" in which he kills giant insects) is a sad joke. It's even more pathetic to see Claudia genuinely mourns over his betrayal (his casual affairs), and her efforts to revive her studio from the Fumigator crisis.Last but not least, is of course, Miss Patsy Kensit, who plays an undercover cop in Cross' family (as the teacher of Cross' "autistic" adopted daughter -- and no, the girl is not autistic, but mentally-challenged, and the film fails to tell the difference between the two) and suffers from a tremendous conflict when she genuinely falls in love with Cross. Her character lacks substance (it's embarrassing to see her trying to prove her loyalty to Cross) and Kensit's performance is poor beyond words, which is, as a matter of fact, up to her usual standard.
... View MoreIf you're the sort of sick pervert who enjoys lurid depictions of terrified victims suffering horrific deaths, yet quails at the sight of blood, this is just the sort of cr** you're looking for; knifings, suffocations and strangulations galore, cutting "discreetly" away from the doomed victim and going to commercial as they are murdered. Ugh. Beyond that, it has no value whatsoever. "Mafia fans" have got to be the lowest rung on the Evolutionary Ladder.
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