Kiss Toledo Goodbye

Rating

Director

Lyndon Chubbuck

Screenplay

Robert Easter

Length

1h 36m

Starring

Michael Rapaport, Christopher Walken, Robert Forster, Christine Taylor, Jamie Anderson, Nancy Allen, Paul Schulze, Paul Ben-Victor, Saul Stein, Robert Pine, Bill Capizzi, Bill Smitrovich

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
There was a flurry of Mafia comedies following closely on the heels of 1999’s hugely successful Analyze This. The most prominent of these was Mickey Blue Eyes, but A-Pix Entertainment has also jumped into the ring with its modestly interesting Kiss Toledo Goodbye.

Michael Rapaport stars as Kevin Gower, a working stiff from Toledo, Ohio, who is expected to marry shortly. After an initial encounter with his fiancée’s father, Kevin is kidnapped by Mafia hoods. He’s introduced to Sal Fortuna ( Robert Forster) who claims to be Kevin’s father and reveals that he is a Mafia boss who wants to go straight.

When things go wrong, Kevin is urged to take on a position in the mob by the very hoods who kidnapped him. Max ( Christopher Walken), the leader of the group, assures Kevin that he will be safe. But we – and soon Kevin – know better. Our wrong place at the wrong time hero spends the rest of the film running from assassins and trying to reconcile differences with his fiancée Deeann ( Christine Taylor).

The storyline here is entirely unbelievable. As a result, the movie plays too much like a television situation comedy and never manages to develop enough concern for the characters. Particularly because of the great talent possessed by the actors, it’s difficult to understand why most of the performances are dreadful or minimally acceptable.

Walken is the least impressive of the prominent actors. His uncertain thug is neither interesting nor enjoyable. It’s refreshing to see him outside of his stereotypical villain role, but the opportunity is squandered. Forster, whose brilliant performance in Jackie Brown snagged him an Oscar nomination, also doesn’t live up to expectations in his all-too-brief godfather role.

Rapaport’s biggest claim to fame might have been his brief appearance on the Friends television program as Phoebe’s ( Lisa Kudrow) boyfriend. Here he mutters his way through every scene and his lack of confidence both enlivens and inhibits his character. Taylor, who was dead-on as elder sister Marcia in the Brady Bunch movie doesn’t do badly, but doesn’t have a whole lot to work with in her plot-restricted, hackneyed character.

Unfortunately, the mob comedy genre has already lost most of its steam before it really had a chance to shine. The quality of each successive Analyze This copycat film edges precipitously toward the brink of annoyance. And Kiss Toledo Goodbye only helps overpopulate the crowded genre. The formulaic plot and half-hearted acting drag this effort down.

This is far from the worst film of the year, but it’s just as far from being the best of the year. Video hounds might find something special here, but most audiences will only be mildly entertained in what must be called a disappointing movie.

Review Written

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