Prizzi's Honor (1985) User Reviews

Mr.&Mrs. Partanna

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 22 January 2009]

When a whole lot of his contemporaries were dead or in retirement, John Huston was still making some very good movies and even winning Oscars for family members. Prizzi's Honor was kind of a coda to his career having directing his father Walter for Best Supporting Actor for The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre in 1948, in 1945 daughter Anjelica Huston wins for Best Supporting Actress in Prizzi's Honor. That's a feat that will really be hard for any director to duplicate.

The Prizzis are your Eighties version of the Corleones, a Mafia family headquartered in Brooklyn with far reaching interests including Las Vegas like the Corleones. Jack Nicholson is Charlie Partanna, not the most polished knife in the drawer, but one of the sharpest. Mafia families inbreed more than royalty or hillbillies and Charlie's expected to marry Maerose Prizzi who is played by Anjelica Huston, the ultimate Mafia princess. He's practically been raised to be her prince consort.

But one look at the beautiful and sophisticated Kathleen Turner and Nicholson's hormones are at light-speed overdrive. But Kathleen's got a secret or two as well. She was in on a scam that took $720.000.00 from the Prizzis in Las Vegas. And in a real bow to women's liberation, something indeed from a tradition bound organization like the Mafia, she's also a hit woman with a contract on Nicholson.

Some 20 years before those marrieds Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were trying to bed and kill each other simultaneously in Mr.&Mrs. Smith, Nicholson and Turner were going at it, tongue and gun. John Huston after 30 years finally repeated a black comedy, a much better black comedy than Beat The Devil.

Besides Anjelica's win, Prizzi's Honor was up for several more Oscars in 1985 including Best Picture, Best Actor for Jack Nicholson, Best Supporting Actor for William Hickey, Best Director for John Huston and others. Prizzi's Honor is the kind of film where the jokes sneak up on you, don't expect belly laughs, but minutes after something is said, the line will kick in.

And Prizzi's Honor was a great film to have to your credit in the twilight of your career for John Huston.

A pleasure to see again

[Patrik E · 8/10 · 5 February 2006]

I loved this film when I saw it in 1985. To see it again after seeing film and series like the Godfather, The Soprans etc is a treat. It is a lovely film, elegant,well-played with a with lots of humor. Jack Nicholson pays the not very intelligent Charley Partanna with flair and a lot of humour. Kathleen Turner is beautiful as ever. The rest of cast is also very good. John Rudolph playing his charing but very dangerous father, Angelica Huston is magnificent as the deserted MaeRose who wants to revenge Cahrly but still loves him. The music is very much a part of this intelligent film. It is a joy to listen to how it comments or highlights what happens in the film.

It is a loving parody of the mafia genre. A must-see for any one who likes this genre and for film lovers everywhere.

"If you were anybody else, I'd blow you away!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 17 June 2019]

Well actually, that's what happens, but you'll have to catch the movie to see how it all plays out.

This movie might have been the inspiration for another husband/wife assassination team some three decades later. In it's way, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was way over the top and mindless, but still a fun film to watch. In addition to being a gangster story, this one also comes across as something of a caper flick, what with the kidnapping of bank embezzler Filargi (Michael Lombard), and the hoops required to jump through on the part of Kathleen Turner's character. She's Irene Walker, the love interest of Charley Partanna (Jack Nicholson), in a story that relies on it's share of coincidences before it all comes to a head. However if you're up on your Mafia protocol, the idea that Dominic Prizzi (Lee Richardson) would go over his father's head to take out a contract on Charley is somewhat dubious. Especially since Don Corrado Prizzi ((William Hickey) was about to make Charley the family boss, in itself a somewhat less than credible order of transition. But hey, it's just a story after all.

The one idea that holds fast in the movie is that blood is thicker than water, and when it comes time for Charley to decide which way he'll go when he's ordered to take out his new wife Irene, he's only conflicted about it for a little while. I have to admit, I was wondering how this was all going to play out, because the story has you going in a couple of different directions. I can't say that I was happy that Charley had such a good aim, but it did reinforce the notion that Mafia Families have their own code of honor. Just ask Fredo Corleone.

Very Fine Dark Comedy

[moviefreakgirl · 7 October 2006]

This movie is often good and funny, but sometimes 's not focused enough. The story tries to cover a lot of themes, genres, and plot implications which doesn't always work. The best parts are the ones which deal with Charlie/Irene complicated relationship, in which you never know for sure if she's manipulating him from the beginning or not. One funny thing was the homage to Mafia movies, such as The Godfather. Some lines really hit their targets, too (Well, it's not many if you consider the size of the population, comes to mind).

The acting is very good, and the best thing of the movie. Jack Nicholson plays an incredibly dumb character, that gets wonderfully developed by the end. He has a great comic timing. Kathleen Turner is very good, she has a great chemistry with Jack, and can look innocent and the moment after a total bitch. Besides, she ha a great, calm, sure delivery. Anjelica Huston is very funny playing mean / jealous / spoiled / manipulative/sweet, though lack of screen time hurts. The supporting are all great, and the one who plays the Don is hilarious, with his sadistic way of saying his lines.

The direction is simple, but has some original shots, it works with this material. It's mostly steady camera. The music creates a contrast; it's quite cheery and happy, and that makes the movie funnier. It's a very dark comedy in my opinion, and sometimes a romance drama. It's worth watching, and original, but not a masterpiece. 7.5/10

Not really sure what it wants to be

[paul2001sw-1 · 6/10 · 22 November 2005]

So many films glorify the mafia, even those like 'Goodfellas' which pull no punches still allow a residue of glamour to stick to their portrayal of the wise-guy life. So 'Prizzi's Honor', which ridicules its protagonists and shows them to be anything but wise, is a welcome sort of mafia film. Unfortunately, although it's reasonably entertaining, the film ultimately doesn't wholly succeed in any respect; too daft to work as black comedy, too slow to work as riotous farce, to humorously conceived to work as tragic drama. Jack Nicholson is good as the dumb hit man Charley, but the plot leaves us unsure whether we should laugh at him or cry with him, and in the end I felt inclined to do neither. Personally, I prefer Jim Jarmusch's 'Ghost Dog', another offbeat look at organised crime.

"Holy #@#%, Boss, Somebody Done the Job on Zingo!"

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 1 February 2007]

I'm not sure Richard Condon has ever written a serious word in his life. "The Manchurian Candidate" had its pathos but it was largely masked by Condon's prose style -- detached, ironic, and humorous. In another novel he describes a typical meal for his Alfred Hitchcok character and it takes up half of a full page. (So many "rashers of bacon," a joint of mutton, three apple pies, and so on.) John Huston has got the style pretty much down pat in this film, although if you're not prepared for it, the intentionality might slip by you and you wind up with a pale drama.

I guess by 1985, the year this film was released, the mob movie was ripe for a parody. Some seventeen years elapsed between "Frankenstein" and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," and about thirteen years between "The Godfather" and "Prizzi's Honor." When a genre is so near exhaustion it doesn't have many places left to go.

No one in this movie seems authentically "Italian", as we've learned that authenticity from the mob movies, not even Robert Loggia. The most hilarious impersonation is given by William Hickey. He's a wizened, gaunt Don Corrado, a tiny frame, his voice a hoarse, goaty whine with more ups and unanticipated dips than a roller coaster ride. The other performances are good too. The dialog is out of a comic book. People "clip" one another or they "zotz" each other. Nine hundred thousand dollars is "nine hundred dollars." Everyone is evil but some are more evil than others, just as in "The Godfather." There is a happy ending for Jack Nicholson as Charlie Partanna, a hit man who winds up murdering his own wife. (Man, what happened to the code?) You probably won't respond to this very warmly if you are looking for another movie about the Mafia with lots of tragedy and gore. But if you're able to accept this as an adumbration of movies like "Analyze This" (a much more obvious and funnier movie) you'll get a kick out of it.

Love it...

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 23 January 2011]

I personally love Prizzi's Honor, it is one of my favourites. John Huston does a very good job directing, and while black comedy is not what I call his comfort zone, he does show talent for it. The film looks stylish with the cinematography and scenery great. The script is great fun with some delightful black comedy elements, and while the story has its bizarre moments it is compelling all the same. The film doesn't feel boring or dull either, and I always have fun watching it. The cast are wonderful, Jack Nicholson and Kathaleen Turner are very believable and Robert Loggia is great too but it is Anjelica Huston who steals the movie. Overall, I love Prizzi's Honor. 10/10 Bethany Cox

It just didn't interest me....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 22 August 2012]

Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner both are assassins, though when Jack first notices her, he has no idea she, too, is a professional hit-man (hit-woman?). When they fall in love and get married, it seems kind of darkly sweet, but soon there are LOTS of complications--including the mob ordering them to kill each other. How will they work this out? Well, the film manages to do it in a way that I certainly didn't expect.

"Prizzi's Honor" is a well made film and it was a sleeper hit back in 1985. However, I've gotta be up front about this one....it just didn't interest me very much. I think there are two main reasons--it should have been funnier and I just don't like most gangster films. There is a HUGE fascination among the public for gangster films, I know, but apart from a few classics, I don't care for the genre at all. So, keep this in mind as you read my review--this guy just isn't into gangster films. Now this isn't to say I hated the film--the acting was quite nice. But I also found the plot needlessly complicated and it's hard caring at all about evil murderers. Worth seeing, perhaps, but to my it just wasn't up to all the hype.

Shouldn't be just an "honorable" mention in film history

[knucklebreather · 9/10 · 11 December 2009]

The mafia-comedy hardly seems like a new idea in 2009, we've seen it done well ("The Sopranos"), done alright ("Married to the Mob" or "Analyze This") and done badly (any number of films, "The Godson" for example) and it practically seems quite an established film subject, even a cliché one at this point. However, to fully understand "Prizzi's Honor" if you've seen some of the latter day mafia-comedies that followed it, you have to understand that at one point it was a novel idea to make a movie where mafia dons and hit men were comedic fodder.

If you approach "Prizzi's Honor" expecting it to pick up where its successors left off, you're bound to be disappointed and will likely find it slow and its jokes stale. It's important to remember that this was the first major production to take the subject matter of "The Godfather" (high-level mafia families) and satirize it. It therefore must have seemed quite clever and groundbreaking in 1985 to lampoon the bizarre behaviors and concepts of honor that "The Godfather" and all its imitators had presented to us as reality. You really can't hold "Prizzi's Honor" accountable because so many others realized there was a satirical goldmine here and exploited it until the mafia-comedy film was as cliché as the mafia film, so when approaching this movie, I tried to remember nothing like this had really been done before.

Prizzi's Honor opens with a wedding scene, which is probably a nod to "The Godfather", but it is a very weak and plodding scene by any definition and especially in comparison to the masterpiece it emulates. From there it's mostly uphill though, as Nicholson's tremendous acting is just enough to suspend disbelief as his character, the son of a high ranking mafioso, has a wacky whirlwind romance with a dashing woman he meets at the wedding, only to discover she is mixed up in scamming his own mafia family and she's actually a hired killer just as he is, but that his love for her is so strong that her background doesn't matter. Dating the enemy becomes more and more of a tightrope walk and increasingly their genuine wedded bliss seems to be interrupted by their real world jobs, which would suggest they should see each other as a threat, and both of them typically deal with threats by homicide, leading to a quite funny problem that recurs throughout the film.

The film is very quirky, since it's basically making up a new style of film there's a lot of imagination and the plot itself doesn't fall into any clichés. However, it does exploit a basketful of mafia movie clichés, from the over-the-top Brooklyn drawl that Nicholson somehow pulls off to the corpse-like appearance of the decrepit yet ruthlessly brilliant Don Corrado Prizzi. As most of its successors have just combined mafia clichés with a basic plot, "Prizzi's Honor" seems quite fresh with its complex plot and wonderfully offbeat characters.

"Prizzi's Honor" seems to have fallen by the cinematic wayside, at least, it's not on too many short lists of great films, and its lackluster IMDb rating (6.8) rates it below or alongside many works it actually paved the way for. To some extent I think it suffers from the notion that very few good "serious" films emerged from America in the 80s aside from the stuff Woody Allen was doing. While to some extent this movie does seem to reflect some of the mid-80s film-making malaise, there is a lot of very clever work being done here, and this really is a movie worth remembering.

With that cast, that direction and that idea, this could have been an excellent film... had it just made up its mind on what it wanted to be

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 6/10 · 8 July 2006]

Comedy? Not really. Drama? Little, if any. Tragicomedy? Possibly, some, but not developed as such. The plot is too complicated for its own good. The pacing is much, much too slow. The acting is quite solid all-round, but that is, unfortunately, not enough to save the film. The action is daft. The tension is low and both poorly built and utilized. The characters... I could *not* get behind anyone's motivation. Also, to quote Team America: World Police(more specifically, the character of Kim Jong Il(who I understand is quite a "character" for real, as well)) "Why is everyone so f**ing stupid?!" To be honest, it's mainly the mobsters. Why? I "get" wanting to make gangsters look dumb and inept, but... you might want to check the level of reality at some point, too. Or make sure you have your audience check their brains at the door. This started out almost poetically... slow, building... beautiful images. Then it starts trying to be funny. Much of it is dark comedy, but very little of it actually works. Not long after, it starts trying to be dramatic... here, it fails even more-so. With Nicholson being painfully dimwitted and Turner being fairly... easy, slutty, it's just difficult to find reason to sympathize with these people(and let's not even *mention* the notion of liking them). I doubt there's a single credible character in there. I think what takes the cake here, though, is the ending... or, rather, lack thereof. Please, anyone who's seen this, let's be honest; this movie doesn't "end", it just stops. The words "The End" fade onto the screen, followed by the credits, but there's no real closure(not to mention, it came across as tacked-on). To the story, to the characters, to the plot. I recommend this to only the biggest fans of the people involved in making it, and urge most anyone else to just skip this one... it's no great loss. The loss is the great chance that was wasted in the production of this film... with an interesting premise(later made into a Hollywood flick that manages to be more entertaining than this), a (or so I've heard, this is the first of his films I watch) competent director and a highly talented cast, this could have been simply breathtaking. Instead, it's rather moan-inducing. Sad. 6/10

Huston Fails To Deliver

[werefox08 · 4/10 · 30 January 2013]

Director John Huston was 79 years old when he made this...and it shows. The man who started his directing career with the great Maltese Falcon in 1941 is way "out of touch" here. The facts that he was a huge cigar smoker and a "hard" drinker would not have helped his brain age naturally. Anyway the directing is very clunky, the photography pedantic, the continuation (editing) poor and the script only average. Jack Nicholson plays the mentally challenged Mafia hit man Charley Partanna...but his one dimensional performance is boring. Kathleen Turner becomes Mrs. Partanna after an absurd sequence which (I guess) was supposed to be funny. The "expert reviewers" call this a black comedy. Its not really. It is a below par movie which is only very mildly amusing . (more grey than black). Made in 1985, it has already become dated and insignificant. Remarkably...it was nominated for 8 Oscars. It won one...Anjelica Huston (Johns daughter) for best actress in a supporting role. She deserved it.

The Family Above Everything, In a Masterpiece of Black Comedy

[claudio_carvalho · 10/10 · 8 February 2005]

In New York, the hit-man Charley Partanna (Jack Nicholson) is like a son for his godfather Don Corrado Prizzi (William Hickey), who is a powerful mobster. In a wedding of a member of their family, Charley meets Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner) and he falls in love with her. Irene introduces herself as a tax consultant, but indeed she is a killer hired by the Prizzis for a "contract" in New York. They get married, and later Chaley realizes that she betrayed the Prizzis and had stolen their money in a casino. Charley has to face and decide between his code of honor with the Prizzi's family and his love for Irene.

"Prizzi's Honor" is a masterpiece and certainly one of the best movies of the 80's. The story is engaging, having a very dark black humor and many plot points. Jack Nicholson, Angelica Huston in a Machiavelian role, Kathleen Turner (gorgeous, sexy and elegant) and William Hickey are amazing. The performance of the magnificent cast and the outstanding direction of John Huston are marvelous. I have seen this movie at least six times, and I do not get tired of watching it. Unfortunately "Prizzi's Honor" has not been released on DVD in Brazil. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "A Honra do Poderoso Prizzi" ("The Honor of the Powerful Prizzi")

Not so great gangster movie but still ok

[bellino-angelo2014 · 6/10 · 5 February 2021]

I am not a huge fan of gangster movies even tho there are some masterpieces of the genre. And this was the main reason why I wanted to try this movie. However I didn't loved it but I found it just ok.

Charlie Partanna (Jack Nicholson) is a professional hitman that works for a Mafia clan led by Don Corrado Prizzi. One day he goes at a wedding and becomes infatuated with a gorgeous woman named Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner). They arrange a meeting and fall in love. After a while he finds out that she, too, is an hitwoman. And of course there is also the mob that orders them to kill each other when they have separate meetings. How it will unfold? Well, see the movie.

PRIZZI'S HONOR looks very good and it has a very good cast (Nicholson, Turner, Anjelica Huston in an Academy Award winning performance, Robert Loggia and William Hickey) and it also was a box-office hit back in 1985. However despite this I didn't found it that interesting and probably for two major reasons: 1) It could have been funnier (2) It's just not that full of action scenes as a gangster movie should be. Now I am not saying I hated the movie, but I found the plot very complicated and for me it was hard caring at all about these murderers. Not a must see despite being directed by John Huston, but just a time passer.

Heaps of potential but doesn't deliver on it

[grantss · 5/10 · 7 July 2019]

Had the makings of great movie - original and interesting basic plot, one of the greatest directors of all time in John Huston, plus the acting talents of Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner and Angelica Huston.

Yet it falls short.

The movie lacks intensity and the script seems disjointed at times. Pacing is off, and the feel of the movie is far from smooth.

Not exactly boring, but could easily have been a lot better.

Great performances for a stylistic exit

[pogostiks · 6 October 2007]

Many people refuse to believe that this is a comedy. They are wrong. Just watch Angelica Huston's screamingly funny moment as she brings in her father's dinner. She is walking towards him behind his back... calm, cool, suave - and suddenly transforms herself into the pitiful, broken, submissive daughter that her father is expecting her to be. She has the hunched martyr's pose down pat - and it is brilliantly funny.

That said, the problem with Prizzi's Honor - which I enjoyed immensely by the way - is that too many things just don't gel. For one thing, Nicholson kills someone in California, and we discover (at the same time as Nicholson) that his (Nicholson's) major love interest, Kathleen Turner, is in fact married to the man he has just killed. And they continue their lives as if nothing has really happened. They continue their love affair and the body in the garage is completely forgotten. But wouldn't the police or someone have found out that he is dead? Wouldn't the police have wanted to speak to interrogate his wife? None of this happens. .. which, is, of course, nonsense.

Many people have complained that they can't believe in the characters - and I agree with them. But I am not complaining - just agreeing with their statement. I don't know if the director, John Huston, was totally up to making this film, as he was deathly sick and probably knew that it would be his last one. But I suspect that Huston decided to make Prizzi's Honor and go out in style - for that is really what this film is about - an exercise in style. Nicholson is the arch stereotype of the dumb hoodlum; Turner is the vamp of all time; the Godfather of the entire Prizzi clan couldn't be more brutal or ghoulish, especially when he is smiling - all done with a certain camp flair. And Huston's daughter Angelica plays the long-suffering "wronged woman" with proud, wicked vengefulness. These are all well-known types, yet here they come across as hysterically exaggerated stylized versions of what we have seen in other movies. Huston is too good a director to have done this by accident. He wanted to go out in style - and with Prizzi's Honor - he did so, most honorably.

Brilliantly dull or dully brilliant ...

[ElMaruecan82 · 6/10 · 12 January 2013]

"Prizzi's Honor" is an odd, intriguing and somewhat puzzling gangster film, it borrows a lot to standards like "The Godfather", starting with a wedding, focusing on a big Italian family, yet it so insists on its seriousness I fail to perceive any hint of parody, and the line between black humor and plain family drama is so thin only Jack Nicholson's comical performance confirms that the film is meant to drain laughs more than anything, still, I was desperately waiting for a few laugh-out-loud moments. Maybe the whole project was meant as a long and big gag by itself, mocking the archetypes of a genre with a sort of operatic decadence, but I suspect it might leave many viewers cold.

I wish I could develop the former paragraph but this is as far as I can go trying to sound like all the distinguished critics, probably smarter than me, who raved the film, I didn't hate "Prizzi's Honor" but how this was praised as one of the best film of 1985, nominated for several Oscars while "Back to the Future" alone is a far better production, did I miss something? John Huston is one of my favorite directors, Jack Nicholson one of my favorite actors, yet the film had no savor, whatsoever, the comedic parts weren't that funny, the drama … actually, the film doesn't even inspire me a review, I don't want to bash it not to praise it all, I just want to forget about it… forgettable, maybe that's the word.

Forgettable among John Huston's filmography, the maverick director contributed to some of the most passionate and iconoclast portrayals of men facing the adversity of life with a temerity that transcend the status of losers to inner nobility, in "Prizzi's Honor", I couldn't care for any of these characters, their motives, their ambitions, their flaws or strengths suffered from a lack of focus from the script, to a point we couldn't get who was the heart of the story. Behind every great Huston's film, there is a man, and in no way, Charley Pattanna was in the same caliber of Huston's previous heroes. Granted it's a comedy, Burton in "The Night of the Iguana" or Bogart in "Beat the Devil" were far funnier, speaking of the latter, the film is as campy as Prizzi but it wasn't supposed to be regarded as one of the best of the year.

Had "Prizzi's Honor" been bashed y the critics, it would have probably increased its chances to become a cult-classic, to encourage viewers to look at what is so bad about it, which is the best way to find the hidden brilliance. But I blame the critics for having set the reverse mindset, people want to see what's so great about "Prizzi's Honor", only to end with a "huh" feeling. Is it good? Not that good. Not that bad either. In fact, what was it about? A hit-man who falls in love with a hit-woman, only to find out they have to kill each other, well, talk about spoiling the ending of the film, when the main premise only takes place at the end, the whole story turns to the slow build-up of a so-so punchline. What happens during the first act isn't without entertaining value, but I guess the veteran director, who'd die 2 years later, was tired enough, and this showed in the film that lacked direction.

I used forgettable for Huston, I'd use it for Nicholson, too. He is supposed to be the main protagonist, the one to root for, the first time I saw him in the film, I couldn't get away from the thing under his lip, was he supposed to imitate Bogart? It's Jack Nicholson, for Christ' sakes, he doesn't play characters, characters dilute in him, he's larger-than-life enough not to need a lousy disguise. The second viewing, I closed my eyes on the lip, then I realized that his accent was horrid, it wasn't badly done, but it sounded like he was drunk, slow minded, or simply retarded, no one talks like that, this is Nicholson's worst performance, almost Razzie- worthy. And they give him an Oscar nomination for that? Hello? Where was the Academy when Al Pacino played Tony Montana, granted his accent didn't sound Cuban but it couldn't have been worse than Pattana and at least the character communicated some energy.

Huston depressed me and Nicholson irritated me, and they're all among my favorite performers, when you're lead to these conclusions, there's not much left to be enjoyed, apart from Kathleen Turner's breathtaking beauty but she doesn't do much in her role. All right, there's the priceless running gag with the plane going back and forth from New York to Los Angeles, there's Anjelica Huston who saves the day by a solid performance only ruined by the ambiguity of her character's motives, and thank God, there's Charles Wickley who reinvents the character of a new Don without even thinking of playing Don Corleone, half-don, half Dracula, he oozes the relative tiredness of a man who sees the downfall of his family and can only count on Patanna, that's how desperate the situation is.

At the end, it's the frail little man embodies the very desperateness of the film, and it's the only real good thing about "Prizzi's Honor". Maybe I change my mind if I get older enough and contemplate the disillusions of my life that I appreciate the sights of scumbags taking their lives seriously, while realizing they're all nasty, cruel, ugly in their way, maybe the film inspired me the very nastiness that allows me to see it in a better light, maybe its dullness is brilliant to a certain way, flirting with uncertain caricature and gruesome black comedy. I only concede this to Huston because he never made an unintelligent and unsubstantial film, there's got to be something.

Still, I could have made it without that phony accent

One of Huston's Last Is Sadly Not One of His Best

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 8 April 2008]

A dynamite conceit -- a hit-man and hit-woman fall in love and then find out that they've been hired to kill each other -- falls flat because of director John Huston's inability to settle on a consistent tone. It's not a satiric comedy, though it has satiric elements, but it's never compelling as drama either. Jack Nicholson is humorous enough as the dolt of a hit-man, and Kathleen Turner was at a career high when she made this film and just about runs the show. Creepy William Hickey gets a few scenes as don of a mafia family, and Anjelica Huston became the first actress (and I think to date only actress) to be directed to an Academy Award by a parent, but her role doesn't consist of much more than her walking around, decked out like a bird of prey.

Maybe it's because Huston was reaching the end of his illustrious career (this was one of the last movies he made), but the movie feels plodding and lifeless.

Grade: B-

Family, Honor, Pride and Loyality overtake Love, Lust, Passion and Pleasure!

[blanbrn · 9/10 · 10 February 2008]

Without a doubt in my opinion one of the best and most underrated films of all time has to be 1985's "Prizzi's Honor". The film to some may seem like a black hearted comedy and somewhat of a "Godfather" ripoff, yet for me I found enough drama, intrigue, and chemistry between the characters to go along with a well written script that made it an instant classic. The performance from Jack Nicholson is great and along with the veteran cast the support is the backbone of the film.

Directed by legendary John Huston in one of his last works, "Prizzi's Honor" is a wickedly sly and well crafted mob tale of romance, family conflict and defending pride and honor that comes with family. Set in Brooklyn, New York the Prizzi family the oldest and richest well known crime family starts off with the wedding of head Don Prizzi(William Hickey's) granddaughters wedding. As the relaxing theme and face shots of the characters gets the viewer attached early to the drama from start to finish. Enter Charley Partanna(played to perfection by Jack) the head hit-man of the Prizzi family who's tough and gritty and direct and to the point with a high temper. Yet upon Charley's meeting of an elegant and attractive sexy blond an out of town lady named Irene(Kathleen Turner)and after Charley visits Irene on the west coast at her California home, it doesn't take long before the two develop a hot and steamy passionate romance affair based on sex which both mistake it for blind love.

As the film develops the viewer quickly sees that the Irene Walker character has a dark and hidden past with a closet full of secrets, yet Charley soon accepts her hand in marriage once some things are ironed out. Now family conflict and displeasure arrives when the Prizzi's tell about the real identity of Irene and her real job and mission shocks Charley. This also hurts an ex flame of Charley's that being Prizzi granddaughter Maerose(Anjelica Huston)and Anjelica was wickedly fantastic in her performance her character is so intelligently cunning with advice.

The drama heightens as with all mob dramas when watching you have to figure out what's next and think about who's gonna double cross who next and the plot has many subplots that you must pay attention to. As one can see that both Irene and the Prizzi's are sly and greedy as they will look out for their own self interest and wealth. The support of the family members of the Prizzi's like Eduardo(Robert Loggia)Angelo Pop Partanna(John Randolph)Dominic(Lee Richardson)and last but not least legendary Don Corrado(William Hickey) finally wear on Charley making him choose between family and love, proving that blood is thicker than water and that honor and being loyal is most important with family.

As in the films ending as the viewer can see the final scene between Charley and Irene proves that love hurts and it cuts like a knife! It may be amoral yet some relationships weren't meant to last. Overall "Prizzi's Honor" is a classy film that's one of my best to watch numerous times the performances and story just works so well with the characters chemistry. As the supporting performances from Loggia, Randolph, and Richardson are good backbone, and William Hickey's performance is old and crafty yet beautifully stunning and at ease. As for the females Anjelica was marvelous and sly and cunning, yet you feel sorry for her depressed Maerose character, and Kathleen Turner is fabulously sexy and super erotic as the sneaky and deceptive and stunning Irene Walker. Last but not least the legend and all time greatest actor Jack Nicholson puts the icing on the cake with one of his better and more underrated performances as tough and gritty mob hit-man Charley Partanna who's walk, talk, and dress along with actions made him seem so real and believable. John Huston really had a winner here proving that the most important thing is family honor them and respect them and that's all that matters. Remember family is the most important thing and it should be special.

I Really Wanted To Like It....

[elevenangrymen · 6/10 · 10 December 2012]

THE FILM: John Huston is in his late 70s. He isn't what you'd normally call hot stuff. Richard Condon wrote a book about the mob, it was a comedy. Condon decided he would make his story into a film, so he approached Huston, despite Huston not having made a comedy in some time. Huston went through an impressive roll call of names for the various parts, but he made his mind up in the end with Jack Nicholson playing Brooklyn mobster Charley and Kathleen Turner playing the seductive Irene.

Huston even cast his daughter Anjelica in the juicy part of Maerose. The film was not expected to perform well, but it became such a massive sleeper hit that when it came out on VHS, it was still in theatres. Critics loved it, and it nabbed Huston his last Oscar nomination for Best Director, at the young age of 78, a record that stands even today. So it would make sense for this film to be regarded as a classic these days, right?

Wrong.

THE PLOT: Charley Partanna is born into the mafia, so when he becomes of age he becomes a contract killer for the Prizzi's, one of the most famous of the New York mafia families. At a family wedding, he notices the beautiful Irene Walker. He is immediately smitten, but he loses her and can't find her. Afterwards he gets a call from her, she's in California and she wants to meet him. The next day Charley flies out and they fall immediately in love, and so does she.

He flies back home bursting with happiness, and he gets an assignment. Someone stole money from the Prizzi's casino in Vegas, and they aren't happy. It was a husband and wife job, apparently and they are in California, so Charley flies back out. There he shoots the husband, and then waits for the wife to come home. The wife is Irene, and she gives him the money, only there is half of it missing. In doubt over weather to kill or kiss her, Charley flies back to New York (again), and consults his former fiancée, after they have sex on the carpet.

Charley decides to kiss her, and flies (seriously, they use the same airplane each time, it's really annoying) back to California and marries Irene. From there, the newlyweds go back to New York (guess the method of transportation) and begin to work on a new job. It turns out that Irene is a contract killer and she and Charley plan to kidnap a bank manager for ransom, only they are forced to shoot a cops wife, turns everyone against them, even each other.

THE CRITICISM:

I really wanted to like this movie, but I think you can tell by my annoyance over the constant air travel (seriously, it's like an ad for United) that I didn't love this film. I didn't hate it though, because Nicholson is just so entertaining while trying to pull off a Brooklyn accent, though it almost works. It is a black comedy, but I did not laugh once or cringe. I sat there and saw the movie.

Above, I wrote that this film has mostly been forgotten, and that is true. it was apparently a big hit in the 80s and I can see why. But it has been partially forgotten. Maybe because 1985 was such a weak year for film, this was regarded as good enough. Nicholson looks a little old, but he and Turner had sufficient box office appeal to pull it off. I had been told that this film was amazing and really bad. Personally I did not enjoy it, but it was entertaining enough.

With the performances, Nicholson is so completely over the top that his Charley Partanna almost works, the accent is enough to make me smile, but unfortunately for a two hour long film, a smile is not enough. Kathleen Turner certainly has an abundance of sex appeal, but I found Irene to be incredibly similar to Turner's work in the outstanding Body Heat. She had me confused about whether she was a hero or villain, up until the last few minutes I did not know. Some would sat this helped the performance, but I personally just found it confusing.

Anjelica Huston won an Oscar for her work as Maerose Prizzi, but like I said above, it must have been a weak year. Huston was good, but again I couldn't figure out weather she was good or evil. It just ended up confusing me. The rest of the cast does good work, but nothing jumps out. The cinematography can feel rather old school at some parts, but I guess that's just the way Huston interpreted the story. Alex North's score can feel clawing at some points, but the covers of popular Italian music can be entertaining.

I felt as if the film was Huston taking a break. It certainly didn't feature any amazing shots or scenes, I cannot comprehend the film's multiple Oscar nominations, it seems to me like a really average film. That is not to say that it wasn't entertaining, Nicholson was enough to save the film from mediocrity. The end result is not the boring film it might have been without Nicholson's presence and Anjelica certainly injects life into her scenes, but in the end, despite the wicked satire of the plot the film never really goes anywhere you want it to and you are left feeling empty.

But I guess that's better than nothing.

Prizzi's Honor, 1985, Starring: Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston. Directed by John Huston, 6.5/10 (C+)

(This review is part of an ongoing project to watch and review every John Huston movie. You can view this and other reviews at http://everyjohnhustonmovie.blogspot.ca/)

You are lucky and rare if you are in on the joke!

[Zorro-3 · 8/10 · 16 February 1999]

There have been movies like "Caddyshack," where I was the only one in the whole theater not laughing, and movies like "Prizzi's Honor," and "Hotel New Hampshire" (q.v.), where I was the only one who was.

I was scratching my head, throughout the first few scenes, until they got to the scene where Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner had their first lunch date and Jack starts in with that, "I've gotta tell ya, I love youse, I love youse, I love youse, that's it, I love youse." She responds, "It's so wonderful to hear you say that, I think I'm in love with love with you too!" He shakes his head, and says "NO! 'In love' is transient, 'In love' is meaningless, I LOVE youse, that's it! I love youse."

I thought I would absolutely bust a GUT! Everybody else in the theater was still scratching their heads, but I KNEW I was the only one getting it and I didn't care if I was the only one laughing. At first they all stared at me, but eventually they all joined in.

JOHN HUSTON, I LOVE YOUSE!

Uneven Comedy

[kenjha · 7/10 · 30 December 2011]

Mafia hit man falls in love with a hit woman, but complications arise. Nicholson is not at his best here. To reinforce the notion that his character is a dim wit, he apparently stuffed tissue under his upper lip for this role. It is very distracting. Otherwise, the acting is generally good, particularly Turner, Randolph, and Huston. However, Hickey steals the film in an amusing turn as an aged mafia boss. Plotwise, it is hard to believe that Nicholson and Turner become engaged hours after meeting, and the ending is unsatisfying. Anjelica Huston won an Oscar under her father's direction. John Huston also directed his father Walter to an Oscar (Treasure of the Sierra Madre).

Two hours of tasteless ham courtesy of the Prizzi Meat Co.

[travis_iii · 5/10 · 21 August 2007]

Eight academy nominations? It's beyond belief. I can only think it was a very bad year - even by Hollywood standards. With Huston as director and Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner as leads I probably would have swallowed the bait and watched this anyway, but the Oscar nominations really sold it to me, and I feel distinctly cheated as a result.

So it's a black comedy is it? Can anyone tell me where the humour is in Prizzi's Honor? It's certainly tasteless (the shooting in the head of a policeman's wife is but another supposedly comic interlude in this intended farce about mafia life) but with the exception of a joke about 'your favourite Mexican cigars' (which I imagine is an old joke for Americans who have been officially forbidden from buying anything Cuban for the last 50 years) I failed to spot anything of a comic nature - and I did try. There is a lot of Mafia cliché but cliché doesn't constitute humour in my book.

Is it a romantic comedy of sorts? Never. The characters and their relationships are so completely incredible and shallow that they are on a par with Ben Afleck and Jennifer Lopez in Gigli.

Is it a cleverly devised parody about the Mafia? Not in a million years. The plot is just pointlessly absurd rather than comically absurd, and it usually just has the feel of a really bad (and cheap) Mafia movie. It feels more like a homage than a parody.

With one-dimensional characters and little in the way of humour written for them, the actors are left doing dodgy accents and pulling faces. Well it isn't enough; even when the face is being pulled by that master of the comic facial expression, Jack Nicholson (repleat with puffed up top lip ... now is that meant to be a parody of Brando's padded jowls in The Godfather?... Oh! Who cares?... all I know is, it isn't funny).

Throw in some slow, plodding direction (this film drags on for 2 hours), some hopelessly daft and clichéd dialogue such as; "You remember the Camora? Well we're far bigger, we'll track you down wherever you go", and clichéd mannerisms and you'll be reaching for that fast forward button before you can say "capiche?". Prizzi's Honor is far from being Huston's "masterpiece" and is rather a very poor last work. It's definitely one work in the great director's canon that should be given a concrete overcoat and tossed into the Hudson River.

Genius

[sbrizzi · 10/10 · 5 July 2009]

The humor in Prizzi's Honor comes from the everyday humanity of its characters juxtaposed with the fact that the family business entails killing people, so, like in the funeral business, death is discussed (and dealt out) matter-of-factly. The screenplay sparkles throughout, character- driven and organic despite the many plot twists, with a masterful consistency of style. Its point of view is completely amoral, which maybe makes certain 21st century viewers uncomfortable.

Anjelica Huston is a force of nature in the film -- by turns defiant, vulnerable, manipulative, sexual, heartbroken, and innocently delighted. Every moment she's on screen she delivers absolute raw conviction.

The film suffers slightly from the need to condense a novel's worth of material into 2 hours, and maybe certain plot points and motivations could have been a little more developed. For example, Kathleen Turner is strong and believable, but it would have been great to see a little deeper into the darkness and contradictions of her character.

The cast of supporting characters seems to embody facets of John Huston's persona and his dry, macabre sense of humor. William Hickey's performance as the Don is a spectacle unto itself. "Have another cooooookie" LOL. John Randolph (the Jeffrey Tambor of the '80s), Lee Richardson, and Robert Loggia are all flawless.

Fascinating to see Jack Nicholson play completely against type, as a simple-minded and earnest character. He pulls it off brilliantly, although it's a bit puzzling that the Don would entrust him with running the business -- again, probably something that fell through the cracks when adapting the novel.

How weird that none of the online reviews or comments mention the time period. They obviously had a lot of fun with it -- at first it seems to be the 1920s, as Anjelica Huston mentions that as a decorator she does "Art Deco" (a term that I believe was coined well after the actual period in which it was in vogue); then Kathleen Turner tells Jack Nicholson her car is an Excalibur, which is an '80's car made to look like something from the olden days. Later they're driving a Ford van from the '60s. Anjelica at one point goes to meet an informant in full-on Alexis Carrington drag, but most of the sets and costumes are '40s film noir inspired.

"The all-American hood"

[Steffi_P · 6/10 · 17 March 2011]

In the 1970s the honourable mafia family was the stuff of sophisticated drama, so it only follows that in the 1980s it would be fair game for a spoof. Prizzi's Honor actually features a fairly serious and workable plot, a Machiavellian tale of revenge and double-cross, and looks like it may have begun life at one point as a straight crime pictures. However rather than rehashing a bunch of clichés it takes the tack of sending up that world of casual violence, unshakeable loyalty and half-mumbled Italian accents.

Yes, the basic approach here is to reel out the sillier aspects of the mafia movie and make them sillier still. Jack Nicholson reprises his post-lobotomy face from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and throws in a few Brando-esque grunts and bits of business. It's not among his best comedic roles. William Hickey is actually quite subtle and nuanced as the stereotypical elderly Don, but the performance is just too much of a caricature for anything outside complete farce, which this isn't. Prizzi's Honor does however contain some very fine non-comedy performances. Anjelica Huston stands out in her smooth and confident portrayal of the manipulative outcast daughter. She really dominates the screen without ever once exaggerating or using some trite gesture. Kathleen Turner is very good too. Watch her eyes in the scene where she and Nicholson have their first drink together – she's not listening to him, she's eyeing him up.

Director John Huston was a veteran of the classic era, now in the twilight of his career. In Prizzi's Honor he displays the professionalism of his generation and the uncomplicated, unostentatious approach of an older man, as well as the various tricks that he had been using to make great pictures since the 1940s. He knows exactly how little input is really needed from the camera, letting the action play out in some very long takes, shifting our focus by smoothly dollying in. Sometimes, rather than changing angle or moving in he will have the actor do the work. For example, there is a scene with John Randolph on the phone, sitting back in his chair, but at a key moment in the dialogue he leans forward, effectively putting himself into close-up without the camera moving an inch. His detachment from the action can be sublimely elegant, such as the garage door slowly coming down for a killing to take place offscreen. Huston was never known as much of a comedy director, and as I've hinted the cod-Sicilian business isn't that funny, but he works in a handful of nice sight gags such as a trio of rudeboys all handcuffed together in a row.

The trouble is, Prizzi's Honor is a dreadful mediocrity, and it's not just the hit-and-miss comedy that is to blame. True, the plot is strong enough to have been done without the spoofing, but to be fair the mobster archetypes are so familiar it would be hard to do it any other way without seeming corny. The real problem is that it simply doesn't have enough meat to its bones. There are some decent characters, and their machinations certainly make for a good story, but there just aren't the great, memorable set-pieces or crackling dialogue to make the whole thing rattle along as any decent crime drama should, comical or otherwise. It's a shame. With the amount of talent available here this is a wasted opportunity.

One of the worst multi-genre films you will ever come across; John Huston looses his honor.

[johnnyboyz · 3/10 · 3 December 2007]

Oh, how we have a misfire here; a film so bad that your mind will wonder and drift away onto other things as it wastes your time with brain numbingly poor production values; character stereotypes of the worst and racist kind since D.W. Griffith referred to the Chinese character in Broken Blossoms as 'the yellow man'; characters so unimaginative and un-engaging that it's difficult to watch as well as a narrative that plods along at such a slow, stupid and pointless pace that you will question the very people who say they like this film.

Prizzi's Honor is a film that ends up being an absolute post-modern disaster in every which way possible. The film is a messy and senseless disaster that has John Huston directing; Kathleen Turner and Jack Nicholson staring and everybody else filling in the gaps as either dumb stereotypes or supporting characters that weep on a phone now and again or bicker with a main character. Prizzi's Honor is a film that falls into a genre of neo-noir, comedy, romance, action, gangster and overall crime – this twinned with its director and cast should be enough to propel it through some sort of a story; some sort of a sequence of good scenes; some sort of intelligence in the form of a screenplay or something else but no – what we get is a nasty and ugly film revolving around nothing at all.

I'll give a couple of examples of how shoddy this horror show of a film actually is. Firstly, the film thinks it's a love story and it thinks this for about an hour of its time: of MY time. Charley Partanna (Nicholson) is an assassin who kills people for a family that he works for in New York and yet he resembles his character out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest more than an international hit-man. He meets and falls in love with Irene Walker (Turner) who is another assassin and they hit it off but as the poor excuse for a plot plays out, it appears all is not right. I read that the plot for this film is: "A professional hit man and hit woman fall in love, only to discover that they have each been hired to kill the other." Well, yes that's true but that actual revelation doesn't happen until about twenty minutes to the end! Nicholson plays Partanna like someone with an IQ of 60: he walks around; seemingly making observations and talking out loud about things he sees; he talks like he is either drunk or has a more serious problem from within and worse of all we never get the feeling he is an assassin – one really poorly shot assassination early on (that actually happens off screen) is not enough to suggest this guy is a hard-bodied, best of the best, international hit-man.

So with a main character who is un-likable and un-realistic, we move to the script. The first hour and a half is just a cinematic dead zone with what ever there is to suggest traces of life merely poor conventions: Partanna slouches around on the phone or in person asking the same things over and over again: "Do I marry her?; Do I love her? What is love? What do I do?" and it gets so repetitive, it's not even able to act as good humour. This twinned with the way he always seemed to be on the phone to someone: a girl called Maerose Prizzi (Huston) played by director John's daughter; which served absolutely no purpose to the plot whatsoever and seemed to be there for laughs as was the scene in which she tells her father about how she slept with Partanna and loved it – that got me thinking, was this supposed to be funny? Should I be laughing? The film felt like a smart mafia picture what with its opening scene of a wedding (alá The Godfather) and consequential scenes with a touch of noir as gangsters, police men and assassins were introduced into the film. But what we get is something very, very different.

The second hour revolves around some sort of a kidnap plot; right, the love and romance is dealt with – maybe the film will kick-start. I was so very wrong: with more characters continuously talking very slowly and very deliberately in a monotone way, we have a kidnap scene involving some guy coming out of his office: this scene sums the film up. Everything is briefly planned and then executed in a heavy handed and dumb way that just makes it look cheesy. We do not get to see them arrive to some dramatic music; perhaps they have to get through security to get to the elevators; maybe they have to be careful of civilians when they hide in their chosen places and when that random woman steps out of the elevator and the gunshot occurs – the scene isn't even edited correctly. Some suspense, some drama: "Do I shoot or don't I?"; maybe some slow motion as the character has to quick draw before it's too late – anything but how it was actually executed. Prizzi's Honor continues its monotonous and uninteresting decent into filmic oblivion as it nears its climax. It's a film where cameras reflect in windows; lights reflect in sides of cars and 'dead' chauffeurs blink when nudged. Prizzi's Honor is a jumbled and messy film that will try the patients of any film-goer and don't say it was a comedy because I didn't laugh with it – AT it is another matter. The film is repetitive, drawn out and colourless in its vision and scope for originality - there is no Honour here.