By Geno McGahee
Mobster movies seem to be a good match for holiday films. There’s always a certain charm about the way that the holiday can change a mobster into a person that turns their lives around. I’ve not seen many mobster holiday movies though, now that I think about it. It might have something to do with that song Dominick the Donkey. I just assume that it’s in most of those films.
A WISEGUY CHRISTMAS is written by Nino Cimino and directed by Gregory Hatanaka. It is distributed by Cinema Epoch and Cineridge Entertainment and is available on Tubi, Redbox and Amazon Prime Video. Cimino stars in the lead role of Tony Pantera, a mobster that gets put into witness protection and gets impacted by Christmas more than he anticipated.
Martin (Chris Spinelli) , an agent, brings Pantera (Cimino) to his new location and places him into witness protection. The two work off each other very well and this immediately reminded me of MY BLUE HEAVEN with Steve Martin and Rick Moranis. I don’t like Rick Moranis, but that doesn’t stop me from writing an honest review. I actually liked the way that Cimino and Spinelli worked off each other and how Martin could not really get the sarcasm that Pantera was putting out. Spinelli shows Rick Moranis how it’s done. OK, I’ll stop. I sometimes get irritated just thinking of Rick Moranis.
The fish out of water story here is fun. Pantera goes for a job interview and the interviewer, Cline (Lisa London), remarks that she is bi-coastal and Pantera notes that he’s only into women. Cimino does a good job here with Pantera and the interview was really funny. London is also very funny here as she tries to understand his statements about his past jobs where he told his employees that if they didn’t shape up “bad things would happen to them.”
Despite being in witness protection, Pantera cannot change his ways and is still scheming and is looking to make some money if he can and targets a kid’s hospital. He goes through several issues, including a fist fight with a police officer and some time back in prison.
The friendship grows between Martin and Pantera and things start to come into focus for the mobster as he realizes exactly what he was doing and who he was doing it to. Thanks to the friendship of Martin and the eventual relationship with Natalie (Jaclyn Marfuggi), Pantera sees the value in the holiday and walking the straight line.
A WISEGUY CHRISTMAS is built on the relationship between Martin and Pantera. Spinelli is hilarious in his role. I laughed a lot at his interactions with several characters. There’s one scene where he walks in on Pantera and Britney (Nicole D’Angelo), a yoga instructor, after a night of passion and the reactions to some of the poses that Britney wants to demonstrate was really funny. D’Angelo always brings it and she brings it here in this small role. She was very amusing.
This film makes me think of MY BLUE HEAVEN so much, but it’s not a rip off. It just has that buddy comedy approach with characters from different walks of life. It also has a mobster in witness protection and an agent becoming good friends. Don’t worry, I’m not going to attack Moranis again. I want to though.
Cimino does really good at times with the flow of the character. At other times, he is sort of pushing it. I notice that when he’s working across from somebody, he’s smooth. When he’s alone, speaking to the camera, it’s not as smooth. In the end, the character works and he has written and created a film that is a lot of fun that captures the Christmas feel with a lot of moments that were very funny.
A WISEGUY CHRISTMAS is a good film. Spinelli and Cimino prove amusing together and the story moves well. This film is shot very well and looks great. The cast is great across the board. This is quality as far as production and just about every other element. I recommend it.
