Co-written with director Émile Gaudreault, Steve Galluccio's adaptation of his own successful stage play should find equal resonance at movie box offices. Mambo Italiano is the sort of stand-up, one-liner, canned laughter sitcom that, unaccountably, the public finds irresistible. Scheduled for Samuel Goldwyn Films theatrical release on eighty-five prints, it will have "the largest opening, ever, for a gay themed indie film."

Theoretically treating "the subtleties and complexities of [a] quintessential Italian family" -- though Gallucio admits to making fun of the end-of-the-last-century mixed culture group resulting from immigration forty years earlier -- it tells a straightforward story in a pretty straightforward way, even if central figure Angelo Barberini (Luke Kirby) must first narrate a bit of familial and Montreal community history. Socially awkward, unaccepted as a child and now as a closet-gay grown-up, he continues on to voice-over much of the film and to prepare scenes. Older sister/confidante Anna (Claudia Ferri) also furnishes necessary detail via couch confessions to always different psychoanalysts and even receives Angelo's as his one-time shrink. (Additionally, the confessional booth is twice used, once with an actual priest, once with the wine-bribed man of God delegating authority.)

Remembering dance and life lessons from Aunt Yolanda, a free spirit cajoled into "normalcy," marriage and possibly suicide, Angelo cannot take the bickering and nagging of immigrant parents Gino (Paul Sorvino) and Maria (Ginette Reno), so he leaves home for his own digs. Soon he will have as apartment mate his former Pius X High School friend, Nino Paventi (Peter Miller), now a handsome strapping policeman who is a closet gay and, incidentally, the hero's first lover.
Unsurprisingly, the cat is quickly out of the bag, and hell breaks loose. Traditional Old Country parents deal with the situation--or don't--in the hand-wringing mutual recriminations of Gino and Maria and the pandering search for a sexy girlfriend for her son by one-upsmanship widow Lina Paventi (Mary Walsh). Nino will waffle about his own sexual nature and preference, while Angelo explores the gay-oriented Village section and volunteers for a gay hot line.

Sundry anti-defamation lobbies have called Amos and Andy on the carpet, the Goldbergs, Archie Bunker, the Corleones (for some reason, never the Kowalskis). Despite disclaimers, Gaudreault's film is at least as foolishly stereotyped, perhaps insultingly so, in its depiction of Italians in particular. The Church and gay groups may find in it objectionable material, as well. Priests are stupid and bribable; and "Give me an hour in the gay Village" and women -- admittedly, predatory ones -- can change all homosexuals' inclinations.

But political correctness should relax and look the other way, for it is difficult to take seriously the egregiously fake immigrant (and, on purpose, Southern US) accents, the lines everywhere salted with "I'm Italian" and clues like "Hey, Boss [God], thanks a lot for giving me back my famiglia," on top of ham-handed plotting and jokes. From molte miglia away, for example, one can see Angelo's last word coming before his Gay Line career: "Not nervous, but . . . [pause] petrified."
Lina and sexy predatory Pina's (Sophie Lorain) success with Nino, and his in reintegrating into their version of normality, is dubious and frankly disagreeable. Angelo's, on the other hand, is unqualified: with "tutta la famiglia" -- older folks once again taught by a wiser rising generation -- with his own sexuality and love life, and with his top-rated family-based TV sitcom that mirrors this film in plot and technique.

To an easy soundtrack of pop schmaltz once reissued as Mob Hits, the screening audience (except for me) laughed itself silly. A guy in the front row was in absolute stitches. Go figure. 

(Released by Equinox Films and rated "R" for sexual situations.)