Advertisement

Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

The Last Godfather

THE LAST GODFATHER (Hyung-rae Shim) 100 minutes. See listing. Rating: N


The Last Godfather is a not-very-funny throwback to the kind of 1940s Hollywood B comedy that consisted of letting an idiot or two run loose in a standard genre flick. Often they starred Abbott and Costello or the Bowery Boys.

This time, the genre is mafia movie and the idiot is the godfather’s son Younggu (Hyung-rae Shim), brought from his Korean orphanage home to take over the New York mob when the old don (Harvey Keitel) decides to retire.

Younggu is a dedicated dunce – silly clothes, silly walk, barely able to speak and prone to accidental mayhem. Also, of course, he’s lucky and good-hearted – a bad choice for crime, as the thugs (Michael Rispoli, John Pinette) charged with teaching him discover.

The trio generate a few laughs here and there, but the movie is undone, first by the plot, which hammers home its simple points over and over: a rival gang, an illicit inter-gang romance and a betraying minion. It kills the comic tone and drags the movie out to 100 dreary minutes. Those 40s Bs never came in longer than 73 minutes and they were better for it.

The bigger problem is that Shim isn’t much of a performer or director. Too many of his gags don’t build or pay off and he has little sense of how to sell them with camera work and cutting.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted