After several increasingly unsavory efforts in the suspense field, Brian De Palma decided for a change of pace to be funny -- with bumbling mafiosi. But funny, as many before him have found out, is one of the last things on earth anyone can decide to be. As with his suspense efforts, he can only give the impression of trying hard. The sense of strain is indeed relentless, and this (by way of some immutable principle) is even less conducive to laughs than it is to chills. As part of the effort, De Palma calls upon his usual reserves of haphazard technique: plenty of parallel construction, a 360-degree pan as the frightened citizens clear the streets in pixillated fast-motion -- that sort of thing. But technical virtuosity, though it can be of use to humor pitched at the level of, say, Alexander Pope, is dead weight in humor pitched as low as this. And it takes very little weight of any kind to ground low comedy for keeps. With Danny DeVito, Joe Piscopo, Harvey Keitel, and Captain Lou Albano. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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