The Palermo Connection (1990)

Instant Favorite.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This was a surprise film for me, a surprise in seeing Jim Belushi do this film, that is. He was just coming out of the cloud of his brother and I think he tried to get into serious (versus comedic) cinema. This might have been the wrong vehicle as a step-out serious film. Unfortunately, this film, for a good lot of American audiences who generally need their cinema spoon-fed, is lackluster. But, as one poster mentioned the film is much like a travelogue of Palermo, the only thing missing is the smell, scent & the tactility that only actual placement can give. But the vivacity, spirit, color, timbre and mystery of the place is certainly provocatively portrayed in this film. I did not like the on-screen marriage of Mimi Rogers with Mr Belushi, but I felt he did quite well with the script as he could best interpret it, the little professional acting he had when this film was produced. The scene where he follows a stunning woman (Caroline Rossi?) continues, some years after I watched this film, to play itself back. The ending surprised me for a quick moment but then, again, what other ending could there be. We have a drug problem in the USA, as well as other countries, because there is an ample well of providers, including those who claim allegiance to its ills & dangers, in addition to a hungering population seeking any avenue of escape other than self-examination and the long process of self-cleansing. You can't expect a hungering populace to stop taking drugs that when you ask them to take a pill for what ever ills you. This film basically says the powers-that-be will not allow the drug to stop and will kill whomever tries to stop. If you're expecting what is now considered a typical drug/conspiracy movie you will be disappointed. You will have to do a wee bit of thinking, but not enough to tire yourself if you're not a natural thinker. If you're looking for a good movie of intrigue & mystery set in the intriguing & mysterious major city of Sicily then you could be pleasantly surprised. It is not your normal fare, for this type of film, but your IQ has to be a bit more than that of a gnat.

****SPOILERS***** "The Palermo Connection" starts off as a very interesting film about the corruption in New York City. Due to the influx of illegal drugs a young reform councilman tries to take the profit out of drugs that in the end costs him his life. Councilman Carmine Bonavia, James Belushi, is running for mayor of the city of New York and is far behind in the polls with the election just weeks away.Trying to come up with a new issue that will jump-start his campaign Carmine comes up with the idea of legalizing drugs and thus taking the profit motive out of them. The Mafia who traffics in illegal drugs uses the drug profits to pay off and corrupt the local police and politicians to look the other way. Getting married to Carrie, Mimi Rogers,who works on on his campaign for mayor Carmine plans to spend his and Carrie's honeymoon in Palermo Sicily the ancestral home of his parents. He also wants to see from there how his idea of drug legalization does for his chances of him getting elected. Unknown to Carmine the Mafia in both New York and Palermo are setting him up for a fall in order to stop him from taking away their drug profits if and when he gets elected mayor of NYC. Hard hitting but admittedly slow moving film about the evils of illegal drugs and how their used to destroy physically as well as morally everything that they touch. We get to see how a courageous young big city activist is destroyed in trying to combat that evil. Carmine's poll number start to dramatically shoot up with him being 11% ahead in the race and in no time at all he's a shoo-in to get elected mayor of the city of New York, this makes the nervous Mafia bosses go into action. Getting Carmine involved in the killing of a flower boy, which was really done by the Mafia,in a Palermo fish market the Mafia have him blackmailed by secretly photographing the entire event. The Mafia uses those photos to get him off and at the same time using them as leverage to keep Carmine in line in trying to have him drop the issue of drug legalization after he's elected mayor. "The Palermo Connection" has it's good points about the cause of crime but is too slow and takes a lot of attention to really follow and understand the film. There's almost no action at all in the movie and there are times that it lags by putting in scenes that seem to have nothing at all to do with the story the film is telling it's audience. The mystery as well as sultry women who seems to be trying to split up Carmine and Carrie in Palermo by starting an affair with Carmine is one such example. One thing you have to say for the movie is that it's about as honest as a film can get about the drug menace that's destroying almost ever major city in America, as well as all over the world. With the active participation of those law enforcement officials who are sworn to combat it.

I just wanted to chime in against all of the opponents of this cinematic mastepiece. Superbly acted and fast paced, i saw this film under the keen direction of my father, Dennis K, and god bless him, he was right: THIS IS THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE.

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Excruciatingly slow moving, this film never lives up to it's promise. Solid performances by actors cannot rescue this film from it's thin plot line, slow pace, and characters you can't begin to care about.I have seen better drama in high school theaters.