The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts gets the chance to really shine. Two young up n coming actors who both put in a great performance. It is fantastic to see these two really get in to their parts. What we get to see is actors withe pure talent at their bests.Even Daryl Hannah is really strong. Even down to the smallest part the movie is great casted. This is a must for everyone who loves great acting! Geraldine Page was nominated for best supporting actress, other smaller parts include M. Emmet Walsh, Burt Young(Oscar nominated for Rocky), Jack Kehoe (known from The Sting and Serpico) and many many more. With New York City as a backdrop for the story, this is almost as god as it gets. A classic!

Nobody would accuse this tale of being taut. It meanders around sufficiently that we get to know the characters, their families, their values -- and therein lies its charm. Eric Roberts is Pauli, the reckless Italian optimist, and Mickey Rourke is his more sensible, principled Irish cousin. The milieu is New York City and it is captured most impressively. These two street proletarians -- waiters and busboys -- ooze with the desire to own a Coupe deVille. Roberts brags that he never ordered a brandy that wasn't Courvoisier VSOP. Their ambition and their taste are palpable. I say this despite having grown up in the area without the slightest desire to live their life styles and lacking any intense affection for Frank Sinatra.Basically, the plot is a cross-cousin of "Mean Streets", with Rourke in the Harvey Keitel role and Roberts as the maniacal DeNiro. Not to suggest that this is an imitation of anything else. The writer, Vincent Patrick, has street lingo down pat, even to the smallest parts, and Stuart Rosemberg has executed it flawlessly. Even "mozarella" comes out properly as "moozarell." The two cousins alternately joke and fight with one another, depending on their position on the regression line between Robert's wild schemes and Rourke's more banal impulses. Roberts puts a "horse physic" in the drink of a ruthless cop. He engineers a lucrative burglary with the help of Rourke and a locksmith, Kenneth MacMillan, that results in the accidental death of a corrupt police officer, Jack Kehoe, whose only motive for being corrupt was to make enough money to move him and his sickly mother, Geraldine Page, to Phoenix in order to improve her health. (As I said, the script meanders, but meaningfully.) Geraldine Page gives a fine performance, by the way, as the self-destructive tough-as-nails street-savvy Mom.The money from the burglary belonged to the neighborhood Mr. Big, a villainous and revengeful Burt Young, who forces MacMillan to leave his family and blow town. He also removes one of Eric Roberts' digits. And just as he is having a duel of wits with the third party to the crime, Rourke, Roberts feeds Burt Young a cup of espresso filled with lye. The poisoned Young leaps through the storefront window and runs off down the street. The last shot has Roberts and Rourke strolling off, carefree, down the street, arguing about whether it would be better to live in Miami. That's a bit of a weak ending. Given Burt Young's vengeful nature and his position in the organization, I wouldn't give two cents for either of their well-clad behinds. If they wind up as lowly waiters again they'll be lucky.Well, I suppose I've made the film sounds like a terrible tragedy, but it's not. The street lingo and many of the incidents make it as much comic as anything else. One of Roberts' schemes has to do with betting a bundle on a horse that absolutely cannot lose. But Roberts' knows as little about racing as he does about keeping out of trouble. He's confused about which part of a stallion must be removed to turn it into a gelding. He's concerned about the colors of the jockey because it makes him look like a fairy. Roberts bets the whole shebang on a win, and the horse loses in a photo finish. The more prudent Rourke has made twenty large by betting on the horse across the board.It's a pretty good movie, full of well-drawn colorful characters and considerable suspense and humor.

Two smart-alec losers in the Village want to be big shots, and so get messed up with some obnoxious loudmouth local crime boss. All of the actors you'll see in this thing have done much better, and even seem to be approaching their roles here zealously. Problem is, the script really offers nothing and the director's approach exudes an air of self-important wanna-be artistry.The soundtrack features some old Sinatra tunes, so if you like his music, you'll at least get a tidbit of entertainment value. Beyond that, though, there is little to see. The story trudges along as the two underdogs try to turn the tables on the crime lord guy. One has some brains, the other is a goof ball who spends his time mumbling or screaming, and the contrast is meant to be amusing--kind of a cross between the Abbott & Costello and and Bill & Ted approaches. The action is both metaphorical and improbable in the real world, meaning the director's intent apparently was for an offbeat allegory. It does not accomplish this, since there really is no ultimate point, even if the viewer tries to insert one on their own.One scene, for example, which is meant to have deep inferences, makes a big deal out of a guy drinking coffee. Hitchcockian tecniques such as close-ups and numerous different camera shots are used. But this director is no Hitchcock: it's awkwardly done and drags on forever. Worst of all: no substance to it.A movie that is noteworthy for its level of failure only.

Mickey Rourke has one of his best roles as Charlie, a maitre'd at a New York restaurant where he works alongside his scatter-brained cousin Paulie (Eric Roberts). Charlie would like nothing more than to make enough cash to open his own business with girlfriend Daryl Hannah, but when Paulie gets caught screwing with a dinner check, both men are out of a job and have to find another means to an end. At Paulie's suggestion they take up with an old Irish safe cracker (Kenneth McMillan) to rob a building of $150,000; but things get more sticky when Charlie learns they've just swiped the stash of a local crime boss, Bed Bug Eddie (ROCKY's Burt Young). This film is pretty good, beginning with Rourke and Roberts' bonding performances. Roberts has some great lines and comes close to stealing the movie from Rourke whenever you can make out what he's saying through his odd speech patterns. Daryl Hannah, at her youngest here, is more or less only around for the eye candy. What holds the film together is the undying loyalty between Charlie and his bumbling cousin, for no matter how often Paulie continues to mess up his life, Charlie still sticks with him. Here is a movie that doesn't get talked about very often but is worth watching, though it's kind of excessive at two hours long. **1/2 out of ****