Movie Review: "A Bronx Tale"

Loyal Reader BigPoppy has long been recommending that I see the 1993 Robert DeNiro directed movie, "A Bronx Tale." Finally, it has come to pass that I have now seen this gem (thanks solely to the BigPoppy's loan of his personal DVD of the movie), and what a great movie!

The movie stars DeNiro as Lorenzo, a New York City bus driver, and Chaz Palminteri as Sonny, the neighborhood wiseguy who holds court over this one little neighborhood in the Bronx. It is told from the point of view of Lorenzo's son, Calogero, or "C". In 1960, nine year old Calogero witnesses a murder, doesn't properly identify the shooter, and is then taken under the wing of Sonny. What happens then is not what you might think. C does not fall into Sonny's way of life (as happened to Henry in "Goodfellas"), although he is surely tempted. The honest working guy Lorenzo battles to keep his son on the straight an narrow as he grows into a teenager (the movie jumps ahead in time to Calogero at age 17 in 1968).

It's a mob movie, it's a movie about family values, it's a coming of age movie, it's funny, and it's deadly serious. And it is based in fact: Palminteri wrote the screenplay for the movie based upon his own one act play, which was based on his own life growing up in the Bronx. Turns our that Chaz is a nickname for Calogero.

I don't honestly even remember this movie when it came out, and it is difficult to find today. I could not get it from the library, and I am told that you can't even get it on Netflix, so many thanks to BigPoppy for the loan of his DVD. It is worth keeping your eye out for this one if you've never seen it. It is well worth watching.

Oh and for fans of The Sopranos, the role of Lorenzo's wife is played by Kathleen Narducci who played Charmaine Bucco, and the 17 year old Calogero was played by Lillo Brancato (who, btw, looks enough like Robert DeNiro to actually be his son) who played Matthew Bevilaqua, who met an untimely end at the hands of Tony Soprano himself while sipping a diet soda, "the last thing you're ever going to taste." And it could have had an even stronger Sopranos connection. According to IMDB, there was to be a scene where Sonny's mob boss was to pay him a visit, and that don was to be played by Frank Vincent, aka Phil Leotardo, aka Billy Bats from "Goodfellas." It was eventually decided to leave that scene out of the movie.

Big Thumbs Up from The Grandstander for this one.