******SPOILERS****** Hard hitting yet sensitive story about a blue collar family living in a working class neighborhood in the Bronx NY and the ups and downs that they go through in the movie. The movie has to do with an Italian/American family, the De Coco's. The De Coco's have a son that's torn between being a construction worker and working as a recreational assistant at a local hospital. In hospital Stony want's to work with and help young children who have severe emotional problems like his little brother Albert, Michael Hershewe.
Powerhouse performances by Tony Lo Bianco, Tommy De Coco, Paul Sorvino, Chubby De Coco and a very young and electrifying Richard Gere as Stony De Coco in one of his first major movie roles that showed the great talent that he had long before he became a top Hollywood super-star. Stony at first trying to live and work like his father Tommy and uncle Chubby wanted him to he then begins to slowly lose his interest. Being the sensitive type Stony finds it hard to live up to his father Tommy macho image and how that mindset effects his little brother Albert who's suffering from emotional problems due to having sever eating disorders.
There's also Tommy's womanizing that leads his wife Marie, Lelia Goldoni, to try to have an affair with that weirdo Jackie, Raymond Singer, who lives in her apartment building who always had eyes for her. When Tommy finds out about this supposed affair ,from a phone call from Jackie's mother, he goes haywire and almost kills Marie and ends up himself in the hospital with what seemed like an emotional breakdown. Stony seeing what this type of lifestyle was doing to his parents leaves his job as a construction worker, that his father Tommy broke his back to get him, and decides to leave with his younger brother Albert for good. Stony in an attempt to say goodbye has an emotionally packed confrontation with his father, Tommy, and uncle, Chubby, that was the best of so many great scenes in the movie.
Simple yet powerful movies about people that Hollywood doesn't make too many movies about these days. Another great scene in "Bloodbrothers" was a talk between Chubby and his friend and bar owner Banion, Kenneth McMillan, on how he threw his son Paulie, Bruce French, out of the house when he found out that he was gay. Chubby tried to get both father and son back together later by going to Buccellati jewelry on Fifth Avenue where Paulie worked to get him to attend his fathers birthday party. Chubby loses it when Paulie not only refused to show up at the party but didn't even want to sign a birthday card for his father that Chubby gave him. You could see the two different worlds that both Chubby and Paulie lived in and how they just couldn't come to any common ground on just a simple matter like that.
And there was also a moving story by Chubby that he told Banion in regard to his son Paulie, that Banion felt he lost because of his gay lifestyle, about his own son ,the son that Chubby lost who tragically died in infancy. Almost in tears Chubby tells how he loved and looked after his nephew Stony as that son who he lost and never lived to see grow up. Also very good in the movie are Stony's two girlfriends Cherie and Annette, Kristine De Bell & Marilu Henner, who more then anything exemplified the two worlds that Stony was torn between.
"Bloodbrothers" is a forgotten movie until you see it and realize that it was one of the most underrated motion pictures of the 1970's. A touching moving and tragic film with a great and stirring musical score that shows that there is nothing uninteresting about working people when it's a movie about working people as good as "Bloodbrothers".
