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Mambo Italiano (2003)

Director: Émile Gaudreault

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From Time Out London

If you’ve had enough of Italian-American celluloid stereotypes, this would-be feelgood offering gives you the chance to move on to some Italian-Canadian ones, and see if you can tell the difference. In Montreal’s Petite Italie neighbourhood, loving parents are waiting for the day when their twentysomething son will finally meet a nice Italian girl and get hitched – then and only then would it be permissible for him to leave the family nest. Angelo (Luke Kirby) has other ideas – since he’s secretly gay, moving in with his childhood buddy Nino (Peter Miller), now a closeted cop, works out pretty well since no one will suspect they’re also lovers.
This being a farcical comedy, the shock news eventually leaks out, leaving the movie to find some sort of resolution between its gesticulating cast of Italo-caricatures and an underlying message of sexual tolerance. Writer-director Gaudreault’s too much of a plodder to make that happen however, and despite effortful attempts at colourful high-spirits, this is an amiable slice of nothing-in-particular, rather undone by its total absence of sexual chemistry between the central same-sex couple.

Author: TJ 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out London Time Out Issue 1780: September 29-October 6, 2004