← Back to Reviews
in
#78 - Prizzi's Honor
John Huston, 1985
A Mafia hitman falls in love with a woman who is also an assassin, which naturally complicates things for his organisation.
Wow, I really did not like this movie. The premise had the potential, but the execution was really terrible. The idea of it being a black comedy is understandable, but the resulting film is over two hours long and, while the jokes I noticed are sort of clever they're not nearly clever enough to justify not getting any laughs. The plot plays off a bunch of twists and turns thanks to the conflicting loyalties at play, but they aren't engaging thanks to the terrible characterisation on offer resulting in me ultimately not caring who comes out on top. This might be the worst Jack Nicholson performance I've seen yet as he delivers every line in a slow, mumbly Brooklyn accent completely lacking in any kind of spark. How a man who had won two acting Oscars by this point manages to come across as a mush-mouthed amateur is beyond me. Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston - as Nicholson's contract killer love interest and Mob princess ex respectively - at least seem to be trying, but it's not hard to seem good compared to Nicholson's uncharacteristically bland performance. Otherwise the film is full of some boring Mafia caricatures - bosses, heavies, etc.
I thought I might have missed something the first time around so I even tried to re-watch this but gave up halfway through that viewing because it was so incredibly dull. I think the fact that I at least tried indicates that there's got to be something of worth here, but I'll be damned if I can tell what it is.
John Huston, 1985
A Mafia hitman falls in love with a woman who is also an assassin, which naturally complicates things for his organisation.
Wow, I really did not like this movie. The premise had the potential, but the execution was really terrible. The idea of it being a black comedy is understandable, but the resulting film is over two hours long and, while the jokes I noticed are sort of clever they're not nearly clever enough to justify not getting any laughs. The plot plays off a bunch of twists and turns thanks to the conflicting loyalties at play, but they aren't engaging thanks to the terrible characterisation on offer resulting in me ultimately not caring who comes out on top. This might be the worst Jack Nicholson performance I've seen yet as he delivers every line in a slow, mumbly Brooklyn accent completely lacking in any kind of spark. How a man who had won two acting Oscars by this point manages to come across as a mush-mouthed amateur is beyond me. Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston - as Nicholson's contract killer love interest and Mob princess ex respectively - at least seem to be trying, but it's not hard to seem good compared to Nicholson's uncharacteristically bland performance. Otherwise the film is full of some boring Mafia caricatures - bosses, heavies, etc.
I thought I might have missed something the first time around so I even tried to re-watch this but gave up halfway through that viewing because it was so incredibly dull. I think the fact that I at least tried indicates that there's got to be something of worth here, but I'll be damned if I can tell what it is.