Married to the Mob (1988)
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Written by Barry Stugatz, Mark Burns
Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Alec Baldwin, Dean Stockwell, Oliver Platt
Release Date August 19th, 1988
Published August 18th, 2018
Married to the Mob stars Michelle Pfeiffer in one of the best performances in her incredible career. As Angela DeMarco, the increasingly uncomfortable mob wife of ‘Cucumber’ Frank DeMarco (Alec Baldwin), Pfeiffer is the only sympathetic character in a universe of cartoonish killer criminals and duplicitous, weirdo FBI guys. Pfeiffer is the only element of Married to the Mob that makes complete sense.
Angela DeMarco wants out of the life of a mob wife. The bloom is off the rose of being married to a man who furnished their home with items that ‘fell off a truck.’ Angela is tired of the politics that come with being a mob wife which means spending a lot of time with fellow mob wives, a group of shrill, crispy-haired, harridans led by the Boss’s wife, Connie (Mercedes Ruehl), who demands that all mob wives follow her lead.
While Angela is plotting her escape from the mob world, FBI Agent Mike Downey (Mathew Modine) is looking for his way in so he can take down the whole thing. Mike and his partner Benitez (Oliver Platt) have been after mob boss Tony ‘The Tiger’ Russo for a while now and when things break down between Tony and Frank and Angela becomes a target of Tony’s affection, Mike has his way to get after the boss, if he can keep from falling for Angela himself.
Married to the Mob is a strange movie. The title is comically overlong and humorously ill-suited to the actual content of the film. The mob clichés are comically over the top. The Italian accents, the greasy hair, the mob lingo are right out of a parody. The story however, features mob killings that would feel at home in an episode of The Sopranos. Despite the comic accents, Dean Stockwell and Alec Baldwin play their characters with a seriousness at odds with the supposed comic nature of the movie.
Then there is Michelle Pfeiffer who plays Angela completely straight, with none of the comically over-arching touches that Mercedes Ruehl and the rest of the female cast, bring to their characters. When she begins the romantic plot with Matthew Modine’s FBI Agent, posing as a plumber while using Angela as bait to catch Tony, the romance has a light touch but she doesn’t play any single beat with the comedy that director Jonathan Demme appears to be directing her toward.
Modine’s character as well is really strange. He appears to be a comic character early on as he and Oliver Platt dip into strange banter, they have a weird slow motion high-five that appears for no real good reason. Then there is the bizarre glimpse of his home life where he has a Pee-Wee Herman style set up to help him put on his suit. It kind of fits the bizarre comic tone of Married to the Mob but the joke only serves to make him seem like a weirdo and not a romantic hero.
Everyone in Married to the Mob appears to be doing their own bit of business. The accents, the hairstyles, the odd quirks, every character seems to take a moment to demonstrate an odd trait and none of it appears to fit either in the comedy that the movie kind of is and the mob drama that the movie also kind of is. All of that said, these touches give the film personality but where that personality fits in in terms of genre is a mystery that keeps the film from greatness.
There are great moments throughout Married to the Mob and Jonathan Demme is a fine director who brings personality to the film but he can’t seem to decide whether we are to take the film seriously or laugh at it. Characters like Mercedes Ruehl are playing straight comedy while Dean Stockwell, who was nominated for an Academy Award for this performance, and Michelle Pfeiffer are taking the film relatively seriously.
The film is a tonal mess. Comedy, violence, mob drama and mob comedy, Married to the Mob is filled with personality but it’s a Sybil-esque personality in which we never know which movie is on screen from scene to scene. I don’t have a huge dislike for Married to the Mob but I can’t fully embrace the movie, outside of Michelle Pfeiffer’s star-turn, because it is such a whiplash of weird shifts in tone.
Married to the Mob was released 30 years ago this weekend.
