Review: Brooklyn Rules (2006)

Brooklyn Rules
A Movie Review by Jonathan Moya
Rating: B-

The Review:

Brooklyn Rules just wants to be a warm and fuzzy mob story. So critics are
missing the point when they compare it to Mean Streets, the early Martin
Scoresese film about two friends growing up in mob infested Little Italy,
which gave Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro their first big breaks. Mean
Streets, as its title suggests was mean-- and honest. Brooklyn Rules story
about three friends trying to either avoid, coexisting or becoming "made
men" is classic gangster movie plot number twenty four. Michael (Freddie
Prinze Jr.) the smart boy who wants to go to college, get rich and leave
Brooklyn; Carmine (Scott Caan) the wannabe Mafioso and Bobby (Jerry Ferrara,
the only true Brooklyner in the cast) the altar boy who desires nothing more
than to marry his sweetie, find a nice job, and raise a family, all must
find their accommodation to the local Mafioso Caesar (an over unctuous Alec
Baldwin). I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts you can guess who lives, leaves
and gets whacked. Brooklyn Rules overly saturated cinematography has a
heated hallucinatory quality so far removed from the street grittiness of
Mean Streets that it is almost a musical in looks-- it even steals some of
its ending from West Side Story. The Lords of Flatbush, (which featured Sly
Stallone and Henry Winkler in their first starring roles), a big, squishy,
heartfelt picture about Brooklyn kids who form their own gang/social club,
was released in the same year as Mean Streets, and has its own cult
following. That is where Brooklyn Rules gets its goombah heart. The
director Michael Corrente (Outside Providence) and Terence Winter (a
Sopranos writer and producer) who based Brooklyn Rules on his own childhood
memories, only make a few nods to meanness and the rest is a Charlotte Russe
that is too hard to finish.

The Credits:

Directed by Michael Corrente; Screenwriter Terence Winter; Editor - Kate
Sanford; Cinematographer - Richard Crudo; Costume Designer - Juliet A.
Polcsa; Composer (Music Score) - Benny Rietveld; released by City Lights
Pictures; Running time: 99 minutes.

WITH: Alec Baldwin (Caesar Manganaro), Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Michael Turner),
Mena Suvari (Ellen), Jerry Ferrara (Bobby Canzoneri), Scott Caan (Carmine
Mancuso), Monica Keena (Amy), Robert Turano (Mr. Canzoneri), Phyllis Kay
(Mrs. Canzoneri)

"Brooklyn Rules" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or legal
guardian). It has sexual situations, profanity and some extreme violence.