Married to the Mob (1988)

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) I’m not sure if my mood or my expectations were off, but I found Married to the Mob considerably more ordinary than I had expected. I’ll allow for the possibility that the subject matter, a mob wife, has gathered considerable exposure in popular culture since 1988, with even a moderately well-known reality-TV show on the topic. Of course, nobody in real life looks like Michelle Pfeiffer, who here plays the suddenly-widowed wife of a mobster (Alex Baldwin, whom we would have expected to last a bit longer in the movie) who tries to walk away from the criminal lifestyle. Of course, it’s not that simple, with mobster and FBI agents weaving a tangled web of romantic intentions around her. Married to the Mob is a comedy not through outrageous laughter, but by dint of ending well for the nice people and focusing rather a lot on the more ridiculously quotidian aspects of its plot (i.e.: love and lust bringing down mobsters) than trying for Godfatheresque grandeur. Still, it does feel curiously staid, pulling back on its satirical potential rather than fully exploring it. Of course, it’s necessary to repeat that the cultural landscape of 2019 is very different from the one in 1989—Italian mobsters have been endlessly heralded, deconstructed and mocked since then, so it’s natural not to feel as impressed by an early exemplar of the subgenre. What remains is Pfeiffer, a genial tone and some timeless screwball hijinks. Married to the Mob works, but it’s far from being as interesting, amusing or witty as I had expected. But, then again, mood and expectations have a lot to do in these kinds of judgments.