Humanism and the Midwest Syndicate – Two Films/One Review

Anyone growing up in an ethnic urban neighborhood had some, if only fleeting, contact with that thing called “our thing.” We non-members understood the deal without being party to it and kept a respectful distance whenever possible, wary of the unpredictable life cycles of mobsters and their associates. For all that supposed fear and loathing, we love movies about those people, from the original Scarface and Dial M for Murder, to The Godfather, Mean Streets, Goodfellas and The Departed.

Gangster movies follow the same formula of poverty, opportunity and tragedy whenever possible, allowing for application of the Judeo-Christian principle of righteous judgment at the climax. Which brings up two films; one from the recent past called Osso Bucco and another from a bit further back called Things Change, both set primarily in Chicago and both reflecting a wry comedic worldview of alternative possibilities in respect to the “thing,” especially in comparison to what we in New York (or Boston, or Philly) expect.

The two movies are totally different in terms of storyline. In Things Change, we have an elderly shoe repairman, played by Don Ameche, recruited by Chicago gangsters to take the fall for an associate with whom he bears a striking resemblance. In Osso Bucco, both the police and his own associates target a mild-mannered and incompetent Chicago gangster, played by Mike Starr. The similarity between the two films rests with character portrayal and the sympathy generated for each victim, as well as for an individual with whom some personal attachment grows.

In the case of Ameche’s character Gino, the attachment develops with Joe Mantegna’s character Jerry, a disgraced wiseguy (yet another similarity) charged with keeping Gino under wraps for the weekend and delivering him to court to surrender on the following Monday. Jerry treats Gino to a whirlwind visit of Lake Tahoe, where a case of misconstrued identity leads them both into the center of a national meeting of mob bosses. The buddy/buddy development progresses slowly and fully expresses itself only near the end.

On the other hand, Osso Bucco is a story about love: love of veal, love unspoken, love demeaned and love revealed. On the way to the airport for a supposed meeting in Italy, Starr’s character Jelly wants one more taste of his favorite dish at his regular spot, and one more glimpse of the waitress Megan (played by Illeana Douglas), for whom he secretly pines. The situation develops as a snowstorm traps Jelly and his gangster cousin inside the restaurant with the two police detectives who have been waiting with a RICO warrant for his arrest.

I’m not going to spoil either movie ending, except to say that neither climax includes the classic bullet to the back of the head. In this respect, both films succeed in rewarding viewer sympathy, at the expense of trying our collective guile. There exist gaps in logic at the beginning of both films. Specifically, why does the mob boss in Things Change, with his primary goal already achieved, hand Gino that antique coin? If the point is to demonstrate the ultimate valueless nature of such friendships, then the movie’s ending turns on itself. If the point is to describe the danger in casually offering such friendship, acceptance of that drives us in conflicting thematic directions at the end.

The main questions presented at the start of Osso Bucco and never fully answered: Why the boss, Jelly’s Uncle Sal, wants to whack him and why he needs to send him to Italy in order to do it? Obviously, the impending trip is what sets up the restaurant visit and the happy conclusion, but it defies our sense of gangster propriety to make an in-house killing so damned complicated. I’m not saying those boys lack imagination. I am saying that they don’t want to incur any additional costs beyond two bullets and a throwaway gat.

Given my personal background, I find it interesting that I enjoyed both movies as much as I did. Don Ameche and Joe Mantegna were both believable in their interactions, with Ameche less so in his scenes apart from Mantegna. The failure of Things Change to connect fully lies with the bland characterization of those men at the upper reaches of the crime syndicate, especially in light of the ceremonious coin presentation early on.

For Osso Bucco, I could fault the nearly total absence of Italian names in the cast, but must acknowledge that generations of melting pot stirring makes surnames poor indicators of genetic makeup. I certainly can’t say Mike Starr doesn’t look Italian. The main flaw in this movie is the lack of a plausible reason to kill off a family member. It isn’t a thing done lightly; you kill a guy for a purpose, even if that purpose is for mere convenience. The Jelly character appeared to be handling money matters for the gang and didn’t seem to be skimming any of the take. If we want plausible, we could buy the fact that law enforcement was looming and Jelly the type to talk, but we can only assume such a just cause, due to the failure of the narrative to elaborate.

Comedy is hard. Effective comedy with a sensitive underbelly is harder still. Throw in a bunch of pug-nosed gangsters and make their imperative your plotline and you’re just asking for a long black carload of complications that can drag a story down. It’s seems interesting that two movies made twenty years apart both make the same mistake of underestimating their villains and muddying their intent. Maybe it’s a Chicago thing, this mélange of cross-purpose that results in unscathed mobsters and deep-dish pizza. I personally could go for either on occasion, but I appear to be in the minority.

I came to praise these two films for what they tried to achieve, not bury them for their shortcomings. I recommend viewing both as examples of the continuing expression of hope, even as one arrives at the brink, and for the irony they provide simply from existing. The failure of Things Change to find a wide audience upon release (Columbia Pictures-1988-opening weekend $600,000) and the utter financial pit investors found in Osso Bucco (RiverWest Films-2008-not distributed) tells us that in gangster movies, the bullet to the back of the head is inevitable; if not for the movie characters, then certainly for the movie.




Abstract Invention by Charlie Accetta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.