Saturday, September 17, 2011

Honor Thy Father (1973)

Twentieth Century-Fox
Directed by Paul Wendkos
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Fox Movie Channel)

Riding the coat tails of the success of The Godfather, this TV movie covers familiar ground, minus the explicit violence and language, it's sort of Godfather-lite. The characters seem very familiar, depending on stereotypes rather than characterization. Joseph Bologna is the son of aging Don Raf Vallone, whose "family" is coming apart due to gang wars and pressure from the Fed. People are dying, mostly from hits, but also from heart attacks caused by too much Italian food or too many cigarettes. There are some truly disturbing coughing fits. His home life is not much better, Brenda Vaccaro is the neglected wife and his kids don't know what daddy really does for a living. He flees to Arizona to escape for awhile, but a bad credit card does him in anyway.

No comments:

Post a Comment