Angela de Marco is a decent, upstanding woman, living on Long Island, and trying raise her only son Joey to be a decent, upstanding person. She also happens to be married to a mafia hit man.
When her husband is killed she decides to make a new life for herself and her son. She donates all of her (mostly hot) possessions to charity, moves to a tiny rundown apartment in the east village, and starts looking for a job. Unfortunately Angela’s past doesn’t want to let go of her as easily. She is tracked down by both her husband’s overly amorous former boss (and his killer), Tony ‘The Tiger’ Russo, the head of the crime family, and Tony’s jealous, irrational wife Connie.

The Feds are already onto Tony and they’re convinced that he and Angela are in cahoots. They send in two undercover agents to watch her, Ed Benitez and Mike Downey, and the two set up a stakeout in another apartment in Angela’s building to keep an eye on her. Angela and Mike soon bump into each other in the elevator, and she asks him out the next time she sees him. Mike agrees, convinced he’s going to get lucky, but not in the way that Angela hopes.

Yet the date turns out very differently than what Mike expects. It is clear that Angela is not even remotely interested in Tony, or anyone or anything from her past. When Connie barges in uninvited, convinced her husband is shacking up with Angela, Mike finally sees the real Angie, not the conniving myth he thinks he’s been investigating. And confronted with the obvious despair she feels at being forever trapped by her old life, Mike comforts her in a way that completely wins us over and has us rooting for these two for the rest of the movie.

Yet when we really stopped to analyze them later we wondered – would they really make it? They come from extremely different places and upbringings – he looks about as corn-fed middle America as you can get, and she’s a New York Italian princess. What happens when he brings her home for dinner with his God-fearing, church-going parents and they find out she was married to a mafia hit man? Who was killed by another mafia hit man?

And that’s not their only problem. He lied to her, and it was a pretty big lie. “I told you I was working late but I really stopped off at a bar to watch the game with some friends” – that’s a small lie. “I pretended I was just a nice working class guy that lives in your building but I’m actually an undercover FBI agent that’s been stalking you and plans to throw you in jail and deport your employer unless you risk your life helping us catch an organized crime boss” – well that’s a little tougher to swallow. And after all the years she spent with her lying, cheating, thieving husband, Angela is probably not anxious to be burned twice. She says she’s willing to give Mike a second chance – but is she really?

Nevertheless we just can’t forget that tender scene in her apartment, and we can’t deny that there is deep caring and attraction on both sides. Big lie aside, Mike is a very different animal than the one she was previously with. Underneath it all he does seem genuine and trustworthy, and we believe he loves and accepts Angela for who she is. He’d no doubt make a doting husband to her and a good father to Joey. OK so technically he’s a hit man too, but he’s on our side. Perhaps that will be enough to help them overcome their surface differences.

Once his parents are dead. (Hmmm…maybe a hit man could be handy after all…)

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Filed under: 3 Reels • Retro Reel

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!