Mafia Mamma

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Mafia Mamma follows a suburban American (Toni Collette’s Kristin) as she inherits a criminal empire after her grandfather passes away. It’s an appealingly larger-than-life premise that is, at the outset, employed to entertaining effect by Hardwicke, as the filmmaker, armed with a screenplay by J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon, delivers a brisk comedy that’s elevated by Collette’s entertainingly broad turn as the increasingly harried protagonist – with the appealing atmosphere heightened by an early emphasis on Kristin’s fish-out-of-water exploits within her new mob environment. (There is, for example, an amusing sequence wherein Kristin accidentally poisons the head of a rival family.) And while certain only comedically-tinged encounters don’t fare quite as well, including (and especially) a far-too-broad fight between Kristin and a feared assassin, Mafia Mamma doesn’t begin to wholeheartedly run out of steam until it progresses into a wheel-spinning and rather uninvolving third act focused on Kristin’s fledgling efforts at running the business – which, when coupled with a tiresome, action-packed climax, ultimately does confirm the picture’s place as a sitcom-like misfire that feels much longer than its 101 minutes.

** out of ****