Here's a movie that couldn't find major distribution, and for a good reason. "Uncle Nino" is so bland, unoriginal, cliché, stereotypical, and in-your-face wholesome that I almost forgot I was watching a movie and not a live action episode of Davie and Goliath with an Itailan kook in place of the dog, and Joe Mantegna in place of the lobotomized dweeb kid.
"Uncle Nino" follows the conventional 'family discord' plot: Mom and Dad (Mantegna and Anne Archer) are too busy with work to raise the kids. The kids, therefore, are rebels. Fourteen-year-old Bobby (Trevor Morgan) TP's houses with the members of his band, called "Carp" for one of the most ridiculous reasons I've ever heard, and together they commandeer Bobby's garage. This is, of course, to the chagrin of Bobby's parents. Twelve-year-old sis Gina (Gina Mantegna. Ah...nepotism) wants a puppy, stays at her friend's house all day, and watches Animal Planet all night. Yes, in the world of "Uncle Nino", watching Animal Planet is a sign of rebellion.
Then the kooky Italian Uncle shows up, and fixes everything. How? Apparently foreigners are magic. Or at least they have a never-ending supply of money to provide pets, garden make-overs, and anything else necessary to an ailing family. Nino joins Bobby's band and makes them sound good; he gives Gina a puppy and warms mom's heart; he plants a garden and reminds dad of his childhood. If you think I have in any way ruined this film for you, then you need to get help. If you can't see the ending coming from the first frame of the film, you are severely, cripplingly retarded.
"Uncle Nino" makes sure to throw in some lessons about fate, mortality, and every other subject that it's writers obviously don't know jack about. They tried to give us a dramatic moment when Nino visits his brother's grave for the very first time. Nino was in prison when his brother died, and after that he waited thirty-six more years to come. Why? Let's turn to resident fatalist Joe Mantegna for an answer: "Maybe you weren't supposed to come to America when he died, so that you could come now. I know that without you here, I'd never appreciate the best things in my life." Oh shut up.
The real answer why he didn't come is this: he messed up. And then, when he was free from prison, he just didn't care enough to come, and forgot. Then, thirty-six years later, he remembered that he didn't want to rot in hades for eternity, and he came to try and get a good word in with his apparently saintly deceased brother.
Okay, so maybe I'm being too cynical, but the movie does little to make me think otherwise. I wanted to like "Uncle Nino", really I did. The uncle character is funny at times, and probably deserved to be in a better film than this. His earliest scenes, wandering through an airport for the first time in his life, are sweet and comical. But as soon as the American family shows up, the sweetness hits an overload level and the comedy all but dies.
I was rather amazed to find that this isn't director Robert Shallcross' first film. "Uncle Nino" is so sloppily handled and so full of cliché soft-focus shots that I thought I was hopped up on morphine and drifting in and out of consciousness. I had to blink my eyes a few times before I realized that it was supposed to look so fuzzy in those scenes. Good grief.
I don't think I need to get into how atrocious the screenplay is. I've already said enough there.
The acting is less than TV quality, except for Pierrino Mascarino, who makes Nino as charming as he possibly can. Alas, he can't save this film. Joe Mantegna, in my mind, lives in the shadow of his Fat Tony character from the Simpsons. I can't help but see Tony on screen in place of Mantegna. Maybe if Joe did something to, you know, surpass Fat Tony he might have something. The rest of the cast is just...I'm not even going to dignify it with a comment.
"Uncle Nino" is a TV movie of the week blown up onto a big screen. Try as it might to be special or different, it is neither. It's just like any other sitcom family movie. I'll give it credit, though, it gave me a few smiles in Nino's early scenes. If only it had been like that all the way through. If only Nino had gotten a better script. If only, if only...
"Uncle Nino" follows the conventional 'family discord' plot: Mom and Dad (Mantegna and Anne Archer) are too busy with work to raise the kids. The kids, therefore, are rebels. Fourteen-year-old Bobby (Trevor Morgan) TP's houses with the members of his band, called "Carp" for one of the most ridiculous reasons I've ever heard, and together they commandeer Bobby's garage. This is, of course, to the chagrin of Bobby's parents. Twelve-year-old sis Gina (Gina Mantegna. Ah...nepotism) wants a puppy, stays at her friend's house all day, and watches Animal Planet all night. Yes, in the world of "Uncle Nino", watching Animal Planet is a sign of rebellion.
Then the kooky Italian Uncle shows up, and fixes everything. How? Apparently foreigners are magic. Or at least they have a never-ending supply of money to provide pets, garden make-overs, and anything else necessary to an ailing family. Nino joins Bobby's band and makes them sound good; he gives Gina a puppy and warms mom's heart; he plants a garden and reminds dad of his childhood. If you think I have in any way ruined this film for you, then you need to get help. If you can't see the ending coming from the first frame of the film, you are severely, cripplingly retarded.
"Uncle Nino" makes sure to throw in some lessons about fate, mortality, and every other subject that it's writers obviously don't know jack about. They tried to give us a dramatic moment when Nino visits his brother's grave for the very first time. Nino was in prison when his brother died, and after that he waited thirty-six more years to come. Why? Let's turn to resident fatalist Joe Mantegna for an answer: "Maybe you weren't supposed to come to America when he died, so that you could come now. I know that without you here, I'd never appreciate the best things in my life." Oh shut up.
The real answer why he didn't come is this: he messed up. And then, when he was free from prison, he just didn't care enough to come, and forgot. Then, thirty-six years later, he remembered that he didn't want to rot in hades for eternity, and he came to try and get a good word in with his apparently saintly deceased brother.
Okay, so maybe I'm being too cynical, but the movie does little to make me think otherwise. I wanted to like "Uncle Nino", really I did. The uncle character is funny at times, and probably deserved to be in a better film than this. His earliest scenes, wandering through an airport for the first time in his life, are sweet and comical. But as soon as the American family shows up, the sweetness hits an overload level and the comedy all but dies.
I was rather amazed to find that this isn't director Robert Shallcross' first film. "Uncle Nino" is so sloppily handled and so full of cliché soft-focus shots that I thought I was hopped up on morphine and drifting in and out of consciousness. I had to blink my eyes a few times before I realized that it was supposed to look so fuzzy in those scenes. Good grief.
I don't think I need to get into how atrocious the screenplay is. I've already said enough there.
The acting is less than TV quality, except for Pierrino Mascarino, who makes Nino as charming as he possibly can. Alas, he can't save this film. Joe Mantegna, in my mind, lives in the shadow of his Fat Tony character from the Simpsons. I can't help but see Tony on screen in place of Mantegna. Maybe if Joe did something to, you know, surpass Fat Tony he might have something. The rest of the cast is just...I'm not even going to dignify it with a comment.
"Uncle Nino" is a TV movie of the week blown up onto a big screen. Try as it might to be special or different, it is neither. It's just like any other sitcom family movie. I'll give it credit, though, it gave me a few smiles in Nino's early scenes. If only it had been like that all the way through. If only Nino had gotten a better script. If only, if only...