Mac

Mac is a movie to prize if you are of Italian-American heritage, grew up or live near Italians, or want to look beyond the mobster cliché that surrounds them. It portrays Italians far more realistically than "The Godfather" -- a classic, but only concerned with a tiny fraction of Italian-American life -- as superior and extraordinarily hard- working artists, craftsmen, builders and family men, naive with money, awkward at sex, unprejudiced, and bewildered by women. It is funny, wistfully sad, compelling, sweet and powerfully LOUD. It is a treat of a movie, one of a string of small independent films to emerge out of the so-called "video auteur" age of the early 1990s. Its director and star, John Turturro, based the movie largely upon is dad and his own early years, and the film rings true with that kind of authenticity.

John Turturro and his brothers go into business building houses. Turturro wants to build them properly, and drives his family nuts while he builds his first development rigt next to a dairy farm, which makes it seem impossible to sell the beautiful homes he builds.

It's a beautiful character study, based on a play that Turturro and Brandon Cole wrote while they were students; the role is said to have been modeled on Turturrro's father, who seems to have been a man who took pride in doing things right. Turturro accurately portrays him, passionate, hard-working, and occasionally ridiculous and even destructive. It's agreat performance with a fine cast.

A labor of love from John Turturro about his father, a construction worker who starts his own business with his brothers, going from rebellious worker to tyrannical owner in the process. I loved how organic this felt early on, flowing along like life, but then that freedom became a bit overdone and the subplots were left undeveloped and dangling. There were also too many scenes that broke into loud shouting and/or fighting, something that began to diminish the impact of each as the film wore on. The pride of work well done and struggle to succeed certainly come through, and the cast worked together very well in this. The real-life telephone message from Turturro's father played at the end really hit home too.

Boy, this is bad. It's as if Turturro, playing method as Barton Fink, had rapped out his own screenplay about "the common man" and somehow saw it get before the cameras. The opening few minutes are fine, but then goes downhill and doesn't recover. There's a vaguely sickening feel that Turturro feels this is some sort of Important Statement, as if he believed the fictional studio's hype and cast himself as an auteur, ready to deliver that Barton Fink feeling. An overlong, self-important mess.

Enjoyed this entire film, having grown up in Queens, N.Y.it brought back great memories of how hard it was for the Italian people to work at their skills as builders. John Turturro, and Nicholas Turturro gave excellent performances and Ellen Barkin had a small supporting role as a writer who charmed the Italian young men. This was a down to earth picture of Italian people and their family life to struggle in the building industry in Queens, N.Y. This is definitely a film classic.