Say Do You Want To Play Ball With The Law-Michelle Pfeiffer’s “Married To The Mob” (1988)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sarah LeMoyne

Married To The Mob, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, directed by Jonathan Demme, 1988

As a junior, junior reviewer I have not gotten many film assignments although I have gotten plenty of other work including a ton of editing for site manager Greg Green. (An editor being, according to an unnamed source a person at this publication who cannot write, write for publication, so edits-or I might add has underlings do the work.) I was surprised when Greg handed me this old-time film, old-time to me since was not even born in 1988, Married To The Mob especially when he gave me the reason for my selection. He seems to be somewhat apprehensive about reviewing films, even spoofs like this one, ever since back in the 1970s his ace reviewer at his previous job American Film Gazette Leo LaGrange got found in a dumpster in downtown Manhattan after some pretty rough and hard-hitting comments about the mob in The Godfather trilogy. Apparently I am something like the sacrificial lamb since Greg wants me to go no holds barred here if I see fit. His idea, maybe quaint and reflecting another age, is that the mob, the Mafia-type mob as portrayed here not the crazies from the drug cartels would not hound a woman, would not let a woman get sent to the nearest dumpster just for calling them hoodlums and a cancer on society. I hope Greg is right so here goes.       

What the mob, remember we are talking strictly about the civilized mob, the Mafia guys who have been running various criminal enterprises without too much fuss since before World War I but have kept a low profile for the last few decades and have let the mal hombres of the drug cartels take the public heat, mob bosses cannot tolerate is guys lower down in the food chain stepping out of line, moving in on the boss’s women a big no-no. Young hit man Cucumber DeMarco, played by a young Alex Baldwin, who looked like a sure thing to go steadily up the food chain, made that fatal mistake when he didn’t have enough sense that God gave geese to find out whose “property” a sexy cocktail waitress who worked where the mob members hung out was, who she was giving her favors too. The boss, the boss of bosses in his locale Tony Russo, played by smooth as silk Dean Stockwell, who wound up doing a million years in jail and may still be there for all I know, yes that Tony Russo, had that kitten as his pet and so good-bye Cucumber.

Cucumber though was small potatoes in this story because the real prize for love-crazy Tony, despite being knee-deep in marriage to a wicked witch of the West, is the Cuke’s now widowed wife Angela, played by foxy Michelle Pfeiffer. Angela, unhappy with the mob life anyway, figured once her sainted husband was in the ground it was time for her to start a new life. Get away from the grifters, hit men and con men whom she loathed under her breathe. But even that escape idea is small potatoes compared to what outside forces are plotting against Tony and his boys. Naturally since that is their mandate, the FBI, is in the person of a couple of sad sack agents trying to get the goods on Tony and move up in their own food chain.

The key for the agents though is to see what moves Tony makes to lure Angela into his bed. As first they, and for our purposes really one agent, Mike, played Matthew Modine, think she is still in knee-deep with the mob so they are trailing her very closely to see what shakes out. Trailing so closely that Mike and Angela start up an attraction for each other while he is working undercover as a plumber living in her new digs. Everything tumbles forward from that premise including the problem, serious problem for Greg when I asked about it, of Angela turning fink against the mob, against Tony. That problem which seems to be an old school guy thing based on the histories of some of the writers here who would almost rather be found in that freaking dumpster than to be known as a snitch. Seth Garth normally a cool calm guy and a fountain of information and help on lots of assignments went crazy when I said in the interest of love, of having a guy who she could depend on once she found out he was FBI and got over the idea of his using her as bait did the right thing by helping catch the bad guys. Of course Angela’s turning was all that was needed to eventually snare Tony into the trap set up by the Feds, aided in no small part that jealous wife of Tony’s who had her own scores to settle. I honestly don’t think that I have been in any way disrespectful of the mob here, of the Mafia, so if you hear that I have been waylaid then point the finger directly at one Seth Garth.