Family Enforcer (1976)

Absolutely Brilliant!

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is a great movie that started Joe Pesci's career. Without The Death Collector (Family Enforcer), Pesci would not have been the academy award winning actor he is today. Originally Pesci was going to play the supporting role it was originally to be played by Pesci's childhood friend and De Vito's brother-in-law, who would been a fine actor in The Death Collector however it was not to be because fortunately for Pesci his friend moved to Florida with his family and in a need of good actor De Vito cast Pesci in the supporting role as Joe. This in turn lead Robert De Niro and Martian Scorsese discovering the young Pesci and his talents in acting, which lead him to be cast in Raging Bull, then Goodfellas, Home Alone and many more. So if Pesci had not been cast in The Death Collector then he could not be playing 36 holes of golf a day and the 1980's and 1990's might have been very, very different.

Low level mafia connected guy from New Jersey wanders back into town and asks to be set up with some work. The guy he asks the favor of is reluctant because he doesn't like his ethic of making a lot of money and then disappearing until he needs more. Eventually coming around our hero gets work and hooks up with another mob guy played by Joe Pesci. Unfortunately our hero's temper and lack of good judgment gets him some enemies and it soon becomes clear that he's his own worst enemy. Good mob movie was apparently a one shot deal from its director who died in the early 80's. It's a shame because the film has a nice sense of place lacking from most big budget films. It's the sort of thing you stumble on when channels surfing on a rainy weekend. If there is anything wrong with the film it's with our hero who is a nice guy, but clearly has a death wish since he is constantly doing things that tick people off starting with beating up a mafia don's nephew for the hell of it. Watching the film you can see he's doomed from the start and it's all his own doing so the film becomes a vigil waiting for the other shoe to drop. This doesn't mean the film is bad, its not, its just that it could have been better. (Perhaps if they had cast Joe Pesci in the lead, since he's infinitely more charismatic then the guy who was cast.

"Let me ask you one more question" Ha ! what a great soon .. this movie was brilliant fantastic acting, great script. The only reason no-one noticed it was because of the low budget everyone will agree with me that its a cult just like "Donnie Brasco" it shows a young Joe Pesci once again as a mobster, this film is up their with the cults. its got some sopranos and some goodfellas chase got his idea for the sopranos when he watched this and Scorsese found Joe Pesci while watching it, that proves it must be a great am i right or am i wrong 'eh ?. I've got to admit they showed one brilliant scene where they were throwing peanuts at a camp piano player "Stop with the friggen peanuts".

***1 Spoiler ahead***I recently saw this movie on a DVD, which was obviously produced to capitalize on Joe Pesci's stardom (he's all over the packaging, yet is a central but relatively secondary character in the film). That said, it's well worth the time to watch Joe in it. The film print quality would have to be characterized as fair/poor, but it's a decent story, and it's fun to see Joe P. "back-in-the-day". His acting style was top-notch right from the get-go.The background music sounds like stuff rejected from your average "Streets of San Francisco" episode, and the acting is a little suspect in spots, but check it out anyway. Look for "Billy Batts" from Goodfellas...he gets it again, only this time on the toilet.