Uncle Nino Review

Uncle Nino’s heart is in the right place, but those around him have difficulty seeing this because his behavior suggests that his brain is not. This description of the title character in Robert Shallcross’ new movie, Uncle Nino, actually captures a lot of what is wrong with this well-intentioned picture: it has heart to spare, but it frustrates because it lacks brains.

Uncle Nino (Pierrino Mascarino) is an elderly Italian peasant who decides to travel to America for the first time. His recently deceased brother had moved to America in his youth to raise his family. Uncle Nino travels to see Robert (Joan of Arcadia’s Joe Mantegna), his brother’s son, and what he finds is far from his expectations: random strangers don’t like being accosted by random old men who offer them a bite of their salami…apparently that’s just not an American custom.

Upon arriving at the airport in America--where his behavior makes Roberto Benigni at the Oscars look civilized—his response to everything is simply “bravo.” This may inspire a chuckle the first few times, but rest assured that it quickly becomes exasperating.

Add the fact that his excessive zeal for America—he keeps a photo of Abraham Lincoln with him—is neither motivated nor explained, Uncle Nino is quickly revealed to be a combination of clichéd ideas rather than a believable character. To get a sense of this think two straight hours of Pinocchio’s Geppetto, with a very bad cocaine problem.

It can be argued that this picture is trying to tackle the modern immigrant experience as it is centered on the experiences of a foreigner in a new land. In doing so it succeeds just as well as those Nintendo folks’ who tried to capture the modern Italian psyche via Mario and Luigi of Super Mario Bros.

Uncle Nino ends up being quite at home with Robert and his family, themselves archetypal characters. Robert is an overworked executive who has lost touch with his family. His wife, Marie (Anne Archer), works at a department store where she talks to friends about her loneliness and wishes that Robert would bring home the salami once in a while. Fourteen-year-old Bobby (Trevor Morgan) divides his time between neighborhood vandalism and playing with his buddies in a garage band, while his little sister Nina (Gina Mantegna) constantly whines about wanting a puppy—Uncle Nino, making an effort to appease her, offers her some salami.

Dismayed by what he didn’t expect to find in America, Uncle Nino works hard to connect with the family. He tries appealing to Gina’s interest in animals, and using his violin skills, Uncle Nino reaches out to Bobby with music, eventually joining his band. Although he makes some progress, his well-meaning actions end up upsetting the family members after he interferes with one of Robert’s business meetings and destroys the lawn.

After Robert shares some very stern words with him, Uncle Nino decides that he should leave, and he discloses the true reason behind his trip. Now by this point you’ll probably have stopped caring, but Uncle Nino’s disclosure does start to introduce some much needed realism to the maddeningly saccharine world of the movie. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t take this further and instead opts for the route of quaint, sitcom resolution.

In fact, the whole picture runs much like an extended sitcom, complete with obtrusive music meant to telegraph the emotions of a given scene. And like a bad episode of 7th Heaven, the stakes don’t really exist. The characters are sheltered from the harshness of reality so that no matter what, every problem has its solutions. One can guess that this doesn’t make for very exciting drama. And with none of the memorable characters that help keep audiences attached to their favorite sitcoms, viewers of this film may be left wanting anything to keep their attention.

The core problem is that the characters are nothing more than a writer’s conceits—for example the perversely obnoxious kids that bully Bobby at school, the kind of kids that only exist in bad movies. Consequently, their behavior never seems real. They are never allowed to stray too far from the idea of what they are supposed to be, whether that is workaholic dad, passive mom, bratty kids, etc.

Given the weaknesses of the movie’s writing, it’s hard to hold anything against the actors. Hearing Uncle Nino wildly exclaim “you are a beautiful flag” while looking at the stars and stripes in the airport, one is simply left wondering if there are people who actually behave like this.

While most of the acting work is believable enough given unbelievable characters, I did cringe on several occasions in response to what will probably go down as some of the worst teenage film acting of this year. Let’s just say that Bobby’s pals - sounding more like Van Halen than Hanson - should stay put playing in the garage (lest their man-boy voices betray their steroid use). Joe Mantegna, having grown tired of the caustic straight talk from his David Mamet days, instead opts for the sappy rubbish of what is effectively Joan of Arcadia Redux.

On the other side of the camera, Shallcross’ direction is serviceable and the cinematography, while not terrible, leaves the eyes somewhat sore.

The picture certainly has a clear sense of where it would like to end. The audience is supposed to fall for the lovable Uncle Nino and to feel for Robert’s disconnected family. Its problem is that its vision is muddled at best, such that it can’t see the means to get at that end by traveling an intelligent course. And yes, a family-friendly film can be intelligent: The Incredibles aptly demonstrated this possibility last year.

In the end, it’s difficult to find any one word to describe Uncle Nino, but I can safely say that if there is such a word, it ain’t “bravo.”