The Wannabe

This was a puzzle. The film based on the true story of Tommy Uva and Rosie DeToma who decided to rob the mafia in their own drinking dens in the early 90s. He was 28. She was 31. Yet in the film the actor Vincent Piazza playing Tommy is 39 and Patricia Arquette - looking a bit like a glamorous grannie / mature Chrissy Hind - is 47! Too old to play a couple of naive wannabe Bonnie and Clyde's in thrall to mafia boss John Gotti.

After a slow start the robberies suddenly spew out as if on fast forward as Tommy gets addicted to drugs and the hand held camera is flying all over the place.

Rob the Mob (2014) played the same story for laughs. This film fell a bit flat but has a slight twist in the ending as if she knew what was coming.

This is a well-done film about a couple of petty criminals (not too bright) that end up robbing social club card games, supposedly to get money so they can move to Hawaii. It's well-acted; a good character study. It's based on the lives of Thomas and Rosemarie Uva, whose spree started in 1991 and ended in December 1992. Another director did the same story as the movie, Rob the Mob.

Thomas idolizes the Mob and especially 'the Teflon Don' – John Gotti, seeing him as a modern day Robin Hood and the incidental crimes as sort of a necessary evil – sort of thing. Anyway we join them in 1992 when Gotti is on trial and the Teflon becomes 'Velcro' as all the charges start to stick.

Now Thomas is going out with a girl of questionable intellect and indeed taste who is brilliantly played by Patricia Arquette. Desperate to become part of the Gangsta scene Thomas hatches a plan to free his idol but in so doing he sets off a chain of events that he will become useless to control.

So is it any good? Well it is very watchable but sometimes feels very small in that it is a very personal tale about – essentially- two people and how they believe their own bull. Whilst this does not detract from the entertainment it also leave unmolested the underlying issues of worshipping the worst in society. That said it is still a well made and acted film that will appeal to any who like mob lore but it is not in the same league as the 'Goodfelllas' of this world.

If you can accept Patricia Arquette as a New Yorker with a Brooklyn brogue, you might enjoy this slow-moving look at a couple of losers who decide to rob the Mob. There was nothing new here. If you saw Rob the Mob a year earlier then you have already seen this film. The difference is Rob the Mob was more of a dark-humored comedy, and The Wannabe is dead serious. Too serious to be exact. I couldn't sympathize with the leads one bit.

I thought this was going to be a mafia related story. Instead, it's more about a weirdo and his pathetic life of mafia adoration. Slow paced and psichological. Depressing story of a pathetic couple of (real) characters. Took me an effort to finish it. Towards the end I just wanted them dead as soon as possible, so it could be over already.