Massacre Mafia Style

Ed Wood comparisons are inevitable. A truly Personalized, Visionary Style emanates from the Id of Writer/Director/Producer/Actor/Singer/Lounge Performer, Duke Mitchell. This Movie one of two He helm-ed, the other Gone With the Pope (that was shot but not edited before His death) finished by Fans and Friends and finally released.

The Thing is, like Ed Wood, Duke Mitchell had much more Energy and Aspirations than Talent. But that didn't stop Him from making a Living doing what He Loved. Performing as a Martin and Lewis Rip-Off with Sammy Partillo that was stopped by a Lawsuit before it could cause much Damage, singing at a Lounge in Palm Springs, and making Movies.

This one is a sight to behold and Fans of Grindhouse, Bad Movies, and Inept over the top Fun Films, have touted this very Personal Film as an Underground Masterpiece. It is straight-faced (tongue nowhere near the cheek) and in your face, Didactic Dumbness, Ultra-Violent, almost incomprehensible in Plot, and full of one Bizarre Scene with Dizzying Dialog after another.

It is almost Breathless if not Breathtaking watching this Thing unfold in all its Audacious Splendor. The Opening Scene is enough to Hook the Curious and the rest is nothing Less than Mind Altering in its Display of almost incompetence. But it is Ultimately Magnetic and Magnificently Moronic.

Just saw this movie and I gotta say it was a pretty fun hour and a half of goomba gore and senseless mafia shananagins. And although it's a little incoherent at times, overall it's not a bad B movie. It's a Grindhouse feature and it's straight out of the "exploitation" genre so its got all the guilty pleasures that you would expect (eg: naked women, Afros, bloody violence and lots of political incorrectness). If you're looking for an Oscar winning mafia film like the "Godfather", "Casino" or "Goodfellas" then "Fah git about it" but if you enjoy movies that inspired writers and directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to make their own films then you'll dig this one. After all who doesn't enjoy a senselessly violent B movie with questionable acting and naked broads once in a while...I know I do.

A Sicilian mob hit-man winds up in Hollywood, shooting pimps, hookers, rivals, and lackeys in one of the most deliriously gonzo grindhouse epics of the 1970s. Much time is spent on dinner conversation, wherein gut-busting hilarious dialog is delivered with impeccably mislaid motivation(one memorably clamorous censure involving an old lady's hands is a howler of awkwardly earnest sentiment). Add to that a heaping helping of very nasty gun violence, and you've got yourself one flaming spitball of a movie-- it's point-blank brutal, occasionally somewhat poignant, and a treasure trove of unintentional laughs.

Produced with empty pockets and a whole lot of misguided enthusiasm, this is gimcrack amateur filmmaking wholly uncorrupted by Hollywood's questionable influence. No frills cheap thrills...a bonne-bouche for fans of nethermost cinema, capice?

7/10

"You see these hands? Know what they smell of? Oregano! Pasinigol! Beautiful herbs! They gave you mostaccioli, lasagna, pizza--some of the most appreciated foods in the world! But what did we give her, Chucky, eh? We gave her violence. We gave her death. We gave her dishonor!" So says the hero, actor/writer/director/producer Duke Mitchell of his sainted paisan grandma in MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE, the greatest of all forgotten American grindhouse movies of the nineties. It's almost impossible to evoke the impassioned lunacy of this movie, which suggests a low-low-budget version of GOODFELLAS directed by Sam Fuller after sharing a speedball with Richard Pryor. Let's just say that the movie opens with a paraplegic being electrocuted using a desk lamp and an office urinal; soars ahead to a scene where a black pimp is crucified while the L.A. Philharmonic plays Handel's Messiah at the Hollywood Bowl; and climaxes with the remorseful hero saying, "The Italian wasn't disgraced, Chucky--we disgraced it!" Somewhere, Jade Stallone, son of the great man and proprietor of Grindhouse Releasing, has Duke Mitchell's final masterwork, GONE WITH THE POPE, discovered in Duke's bedroom closet after his demise. Bring on THE POPE! And, God be prasied, some day bring MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE--a bootleg favorite--to the public's eye. Even Master Sam himself never went quite so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

The opening sequence of "Massacre Mafia Style" is truly unforgettable.Two cold-blooded mafia executioners stroll into a Los Angeles office and after electrocuting some poor chap in the bathroom urinal they shoot to death everybody in sight.The film follows the exploits of Mini(Duke Mitchell),son of a once great Sicilian mobster,who returns to America after his fathers exile to reclaim his families name as a top crime enforcer.What follows is a mafioso rise and fall awashed with blood and suffering.Mini never actually rises.He is just a mechanical killer,who has enough balls to start mob war.This sleazy and extremely violent mafia thriller truly deserves to be called a cult classic.9 out of 10.