Review of Prizzi's Honor (1985) by Terri H — 22 Apr 2009
Oh. My. God. How could this movie get nominated for so many Oscars? And be a hit? I was incredibly disappointed; everything felt so wrong: the story felt as if it wasn't sure whether it wanted to be a comedy (without laughs) or a drama (without.
..well, drama.) The compositions in many of the scenes were atrocious. Jack Nicholson's acting felt very off; I would've much preferred if he acted like ol' Jack instead of pursing his lips to fake a Brooklyn accent.
The love story is absurd: they meet and fall for eachother after a day or so (he even flies to California just to see her after a brief meeting) and despite knowing she can full well kill him, he accepts her.
WTF? The mafia parts were really cliche too but with the movie's ambiguous tone, I wasn't sure I was supposed to laugh at the silliness or take it serious and take it as stupid. It's...mindboggling.
But there are small redeeming qualities to the film: Anjelica Huston gave a decent performance and as silly as William Hickey was, I love his frog voice, it cracks me up. There are also very few moments where I actually really liked what Huston did: the meeting with Nicholson and Turner was incredible in how it took place in one shot that slowly dollied in, their faces getting closer as the frame became tighter.
But those moments are few and so far between than I'm surprised I finished this movie.
This review of Prizzi's Honor (1985) was written by Terri H on 22 Apr 2009.
Prizzi's Honor has generally received positive reviews.
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