A well-written spoof can stand on its own. You don't have to know "Mildred Pierce" and "Gone With the Wind" by heart, for example, to find Carol Burnett's take-offs on these classics hysterically funny.
On the other hand, you would need to be intimately acquainted with Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather" trilogy and Martin Scorsese's "Casino" to even begin to appreciate most of the gags in "Mafia!" the latest entry in the anything-for-a-laugh school of filmmaking. Even if you knew the Coppola and Scorsese works inside out, you still might find this attempted send-up more curious than it is funny; if you have only a passing familiarity with the films "Mafia!" tries to satirize, you'll be snoozing instead of snickering.
The only thing that sets "Mafia!" (still identified in the opening credits by its pre-release title, "Jane Austen's Mafia!") apart from most of the other pictures like it is the absence of Leslie Nielsen from the cast. Otherwise, the picture is business as usual for director Jim Abrahams, one of the original members of the teams behind "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun." But doing too many of these joke-athons apparently has drained Abrahams of the boundless energy that is his usual trademark. "Mafia!" lopes along aimlessly, squandering most of its best ideas in its first half-hour. Though he's up to the challenge of alternately parodying Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, Jay Mohr doesn't quite have the comic chops to pull it off. An uproariously funny stand-up comedian, Mohr hasn't yet found a big-screen role to match his talents. At least Mohr escapes "Mafia!" without undue shame. Lloyd Bridges, in his last role, is not so fortunate.
Mohr and Bridges play the heads of the Cartino crime family, which operates Las Vegas' shady Peppermill Casino, an establishment notable for its high-stakes games of Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. A brush with death causes amoral Anthony (Mohr) to reflect back on his people's checkered history, which includes an escape from the Sicilian town of Salmonella, a long climb to the top of the olive oil trade, and a move into New York's seedy underworld.
Typical of the level of "Mafia!'s" humor is a scene on Ellis Island with American Indians protesting being made to wait because "we had reservations" and numerous gags about the flatulence of the family matriarch (Olympia Dukakis, what were you thinking?).
Every so often there's a genuinely clever bit or a bright non sequitur - Anthony introduces his friends to his new bride Diane (Christina Applegate) by explaining "we went to Vassar together" - although much of the material is as dated as those "Evening At the Improv" repeats that turn up on A&E late at night. Jokes about movies like "Cocktail" and "Child's Play" might have gone over big in the early days of the Bush administration, but a decade later they're a solid indicator of "Mafia!'s" humor recession. James Sanford
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