Think of all the mafia clichés: slick hair, slick suits, slick street jive, and spaghetti. Now throw in a greasy portion of fish and chips, drench in thick Glaswegian accents and - bada-bing! - it's Don Coutts' cosy but inconsequential mob comedy American Cousins.
"SOFT SCOOP"
When New Joisey hoods Gino (Danny Nucci) and Settimo (Dan Hedaya) are forced to vamoose on pain of death, they flee to Glasgow and hide out above a café owned by cousin Roberto (Gerald Lepkowski). He's a stand-up guy, only he thinks a Magnum 45 is a type of ice cream, and owns a stamp collection. Talk about Mister Softie.
Only when Settimo draws a gun on local gangsters does Roberto finally cotton on to their game - also a neon sign for the hitters on their trail. More worrying for Roberto is the attention Gino is attracting from his secret love, and hired help, Alice (Shirley Henderson).
While the culture clash between blood relatives is an intriguing premise, Don Coutts' execution would leave Don Corleone shaking his head.
There are some amusing set-ups, like Gino's attempt to make fish and chips, and Settimo trying to get his head round the notion of stamp collecting, but the joke never follows through to a satisfying punchline. The same goes for the film as a whole, adding up to less than the sum of its parts.
"DELIGHTFULLY UNDERSTATED"
Console yourselves with a delightfully understated performance from Dan Hedaya, who also affords this low-key production a touch of polish. Conversely, Shirley Henderson gives it true grit, rolling up her sleeves for the kitchen sink crowd.
Coutts does well to balance out contrasting performances, but American Cousins remains tonally uneven. It's not quite funny enough to be a comedy, not tense enough to be a thriller, and not insightful enough to make a compelling family drama. Instead it sits somewhere inbetween, like the fluffy sweet filling in a horn of cannoli.
American Cousins (2003)
