Civsgirl
This movie was recommended to me because I grew up in Pittsburgh and LOVE my hometown. It was wonderful to see the Strip District and the City filmed in such a beautiful way.Although the movie was sweet and heartwarming, the acting (especially in the beginning of the movie) was VERY stiff and wooden showing no chemistry between the brothers at all.My biggest complaint were the attempts at the accents of the Italian characters. BELLA'S ACCENT WAS MORE Russian THAN Italian. Scott Baio speaking Italian was more authentic than the accents and Italian words used by Bella and Massimo! It completely distracted me from truly enjoying the movie.I also felt they did not do enough to encourage the idea of Scott Baio as a corporate shark.A charming made for TV type movie and enjoyable for the whole family but with some flaws.
poloele
I really cannot fathom who these people are writing the glorious comments. The movie was banal at best, partially unbearable for the bad acting. ( The retarded brother made me scream, and if I had to look into Bella's eyes one more time, I would've rather gone blind ) The cuts were horrible, and the whole movie and script didn't make much sense anyway. What was the daughter doing in Mexico now? working as a prostitute maybe? Yeah, and I still have to find a high powered VP executive who is casually dropping in on meetings, and baking bread anyway, haha wish I had this guy's job with the paycheck and all the free time. The Italian couple was laughably pseudo-realistic, the daughter remained 2 dimensional, and the rest of the cast seemed more like cast-offs from a highschool drama lab. I watched it till the end just in the faint hope, it would get any better - NOT!
kastellos
A very good tearjerker. Scott Baio is amazingly good as is the entire cast. The accents of Bella and Massimo are not good (although I'm not Italian, I grew up in a strong working-class Italian neighborhood) but they don't really take away from their performances. The new (i.e. relatively unknown) actress who plays Lucca is a gem. I would like to see here more often. Shuler Hensley as Pino wrenches the heart. The story line is far-fetched, but the acting and setting are so good, they come very, very close to making it entirely believable.The Pittsburgh backdrop is gorgeous and greatly adds to the film.If you're jaded and not sentimental or do not come from an ethnic background you may not like it, but if you're a sentimental Italian, or Greek, or Spaniard, or Lebanese, etc., I think you will enjoy it and use up a box of tissues.
jazznu
This movie was not that good. The high user rating and the comments make you think that this movie would be extremely good and it didn't even rate in the average category. After reading through the comments I am guessing that many reviewers knew the people who made this movie and wanted to give it a favorable review. Although I enjoyed Scott Baio and Kristin Minter's characters, everything else in the movie made this a movie I wish I hadn't taken the time to watch. The parents definitely overacted just about every one of their lines and the retarded brother's performance bordered on the insulting many times. Scott Baio's character's work life was not realistic (when exactly was he working so hard at his other job that he warranted a promotion to Senior VP). The thing is, I enjoy movies with concepts similar to this one - unrealistic, but nevertheless romantic and predictable story lines- the problem is that this movie was just poorly executed. It was suggested that you have to enjoy or appreciate ethnic movies to enjoy this one, well I love movies involving ethnicity but showing Italian culture in the form of extremely bad accents, overacted but nonetheless authentic family interactions, and good food doesn't save this movie.Save your time and your money and pass on this movie, you'll only be disappointed.
AD
