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paul2650
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Jimmy Whispers Returns to Mulberry Street (2004)
Recently released from prison, mafioso Jimmy Whispers returns to NYC's Mulberry Street in Little Italy, only to find his old neighborhood taken over by a Chinese street gang
Crime film bit-part player Clem Caserta tries his hand at screen writing, directing, and starring, and, sadly, it's tough to figure out which of the three hats looks best on him, since none of the three really look good at all.
Caserta is no Woody Allen, as this completely predictable and totally amateurish first effort clearly proves.
Shot on video tape rather than film, this no-star, no-budget, barely-an-hour-long indy tells the story of mafioso Jimmy Whispers, who returns home to his Mulberry Street neighborhood to find his old haunts taken over by the Red Dragons, a gang of drug dealing Chinese street thugs and shakedown artists.
Jimmy gathers together his old crew, and borrowing heavily from at least three plot elements of "A Bronx Tale", goes ahead and....wait, I don't have to tell you, do I? Undoubtedly you've figured out the rest of the story already.
If you like the mafia-film genre, though, it's worth watching this one strictly for laughs. That is, if you can find it anywhere.
I only happened upon a copy because a friend of mine is a Staten Island neighbor of Clem's, and if my friend read this review I have a feeling that Caserta's Mulberry Street crew - who were so obviously amateur actors that they could actually be real mafioso, for all I know - might be looking to try out their leg-breaking skills on me next.
The dialogue is mostly ridiculous, the fight scenes are possibly the worst I've ever seen, and the camera work is so poor that it barely rises above reminding one of a home video.
The film's one saving grace - if it has one at all - is that the actors at least look like mafia guys, and their accents and speech patterns, when you can look past the silly lines in the script, are somewhat realistic.
Shade (2003)
What Was Unrealistic
There is no high stakes poker game in the world, be it in a casino, poker club, or wherever that would not have a professional dealer running the game.
The players would absolutely not be permitted to handle any cards other than their own, to prevent the players from doing exactly what happened in the film: Cheating. In these types of games, the "House" makes money by keeping a percentage of each pot. Cheating is not in their interest, and no high stakes players would ever play in a game like this.
Same problem with "Rounders". Still, it was a decent "Big Con" movie, altho not in the class of "The Sting", "Confidence", "Matchstick Men" or "House of Games".