Married to the Mob (1988)

It ain't Shakespeare, that's true, but it is a light and breezy romp. Pfieffer and Modine and Baldwin and Dean Stockwell are all having a great time with this 'dissatisfied mob wife' tale, and you will too. Interesting to watch this in the light of the "sopranos"- they are like loopy relatives somehow. Demme went on to greater, darker films (silence of the lambs, philadelphia) but I still enjoy his lighter period. So will you.

Fmovies: The mobster 'Cucumber' Frank de Marco (Alec Baldwin) is married with the housewife Angela de Marco (Michelle Pfeiffer) and she in unhappy with their marriage and wants the divorce. Frank is having a love affair with Karen Lutnick (Nancy Travis), who is the mistress of his boss Tony 'The Tiger' Russo (Dean Stockwell). When Tony discovers their love affair, he kills them in a party. Tony is under surveillance of the FBI agents Mike Downey (Matthew Modine) and Ed Benitez (Oliver Platt) and during the wake, Tony kisses Angela. The agents and Tony's wife Connie Russo (Mercedes Ruehl) believe that the widow Angela is having an affair with Tony. Angela takes the opportunity to move from the suburbs to a small apartment in New York with her son. Meanwhile Mike bugs her apartment and soon they fall in love with each other. But Tony discovers her new address and courts her. Soon the FBI Senior Management blackmails Angela to force her to get close to Tony to help the FBI to arrest him and she discovers that Mike is an agent. Will Angela give a second chance to Mike?

"Married to the Mob" is another great film from the 80's, directed by Jonathan Demme and with a story with comedy, romance and action. The chemistry between Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Modine is impressive but Mercedes Ruehl steals the show. There is cameo participation of famous people and this movie is still attractive and has not aged after being watched many times along almost thirty years. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "De Caso com a Máfia" ("In an Affair with the Mafia")

Strange but acceptable mob comedy that has an undercover FBI agent (Matthew Modine) flirting with a mobster's concerned widow (Michelle Pfeffier) to tie two murders on a elusive mob boss (Dean Stockwell).

The movie shows that it doesn't have to go over the top just to be funny and director Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs", "Philadelphia") keeps the movie from looking like it being was restrained. That's good and it avoids being predictiable, too.

Married to the Mob fmovies. Came across this the other day on TV and what drew my attention right away was a young Alec Baldwin and Michelle Pfeiffer and her dreamy eyes and 80s fashion and then you start hearing some 80s music from New Order and it's like okay I'm hooked.But the movie got worse as it went along it seemed.It had some awesome potential but it seemed like the directors intention was to make this movie silly.Don't get me wrong I have nothing against silly but I really think this movie could have been a great smart comedy.This movie is saved somewhat by Michelle, you're drawn by how beautiful she looked in this film while trying to convey trashy gangster wife, and the acting overall in this movie is pretty good, you see lots of generic mobster acting mannerisms that were the style of the time which you sometimes still see till recently in the Sopranos for example. If you're going to into this movie looking for some silly fun and a 80s period piece than you will like it.

I just wanted to write a quick response to all those people who give this film a bad review because they think it isn't funny or that it's boring.

Here's the trick --- the film is not meant to be just a comedy. It's got some depth to it. Like many Demme films it deals with people living in some of the odd corners of our society who are trying to work out how to put together a fulfilling life for themselves.

Unfortunately, the movie and home video industries don't deal well with subtlety and drop this in the "COMEDY" bin. It IS funny, but a lot of the humor is off-beat. However, the heart of the movie is not about the humor but about the people in it.

It may not be one of the greatest films in the world but it is solid and entertaining.

And the cast is one of those that shows why casting is an art unto itself. Michelle Pfieffer is great and this may be the film that showed she had some acting chops to add to her beauty. Mercedes Ruehl is a big hoot and gets to chew the scenery in the way only she can, in a role which requires it. Throw in Oliver Platt, Joan Cusack in smaller roles and the talented Dean Stockwell ... and even Chris Isaak and you've got a great cast throughout which here, as usual, makes a great difference.

Matthew Modine is fun, but more important, he's a major hottie in this movie. Hot, cute and sexy.

Sit back, expect the unexpected and let the movie take you where it wants to go and you should have a great time.

This is a romantic comedy, so it's really a fairy tale, but an unconventional one. Cinderella, rather than living in the ashes, lives in an overdecorated castle in the suburbs with a good looking husband who's no prince. She does find her prince, but he's not that handsome. Instead of a castle, at least initially, she gets a tiny walk-up in Manhattan.

Pfeifer, Stockwell and Ruehl lead a cast of fully realized, if a little over-the-top, characters.

Demme reaches the highest level of movie-making in my mind. He creates a world I want to move into - a Manhattan neighborhood and street life teeming with life and community.

I wish IMDb linked to reviewers' other comments. I'd like to know what other movies the people who panned this one hate. I am always looking for a lot of laughs and for nice places in which to "live" at least for an hour or so.