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Released by: Artisan
Released on: 6/19/2003
Directors: Charles A. Addessi, William DeMeo
Cast: William DeMeo, Conor Dubin, Joe Viterelli, Joseph D'Onofiro
Year: 200
The Movie:
I'm a sucker for a good mobster film. I love the Godfafther Trilogy and of course, Scorcese's mafia movies rank among the top ten lists of many fans and critics. So when I was given the chance to check out Artisan's release of Wannabes, a film that looked like it might be in the same vein as some of my favorites from the genre, I figured I was in for a pretty food night of viewing pleasure.
Well, sadly, what initially drew me to the film in the first place served to become it's undoing. Charles A. Addessi and William DeMeo's film about two brothers who get involved with the mob has very much a 'we've seen this all before' feeling to it that just didn't hold my attention.
The film chronicles the exploits of Angelo and Paulie, the aforementioned brothers. A local mafia don named Santo (sadly, this is not El Santo, otherwise I probably would have liked this movie better) breaks up a squabble between the two siblings. Angelo is quite taken by the whole mafia thing, and eventually he ends up thinking that maybe this Santo guy is onto something and goes into business as a bookie.
This smalltime criminal activity soon catches Santo's eye and of course, they end up working together. Unluckily for Angelo, however, Santo has an extremely jealous son named Vinnie who doesn't like all the attention that his father has been lavishing upon his new star player.
Things soon get a bit more complicated for Angelo when Santo kicks the bucket, and Vinnie decides that he's going to become the new bossman, and it all leads to a rather predictable conclusion. Especially if you've seen Goodfellas or Mean Streets. Or The Godfather films. Or any other reasonably popular mafia film for that matter.
While the production values are pretty decent and the direction competent, the story just doesn't bring anything new to the table and the characters are just a bit too cliché to really care about.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Even if the picture is relatively decent as far as grain and print damage goes, with solid colors and minimal evidence of compression artifacts or edge enhancement, it doesn't matter, because Artisan has taken what was obviously shot as a widescreen film and chopped it up so that it looks like total crap. There are literally instances where all you can see are the very tips of a characters nose while he's talking to someone. It's ridiculous and almost painful to watch as any talent that the director and cinematographer may have had for setting up a shot it wasted with this hatchet job of a release.
Adding a certain sense of irony to the release, the DVD's Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track has solid channel separation and is quite clean, free of any defects or hiss. There are a few scenes where a bit more bass could have helped things out a little bit, but overall I liked what I heard on this DVD.
The films original theatrical trailer is included.
The Final Word:
Artisan releases a mediocre movie and makes it much, much worse by horribly cropping the picture and releasing it with only a trailer as an extra.