Stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco first starred alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 2019 crime drama The Irishman. Maniscalco played eccentric real-life gangster Joey Gallo. Frank Sheeran, played by De Niro, kills him in the film. Scorsese has an almost uncanny ability to cast professional weirdos effectively in serious roles; As for Rickles, Maniscalco was brilliantly acquitted in a minor role.
The points we have to reach are: Maniscalco is currently asking De Niro to star in About My Father, a romantic comedy that draws largely on the comedian’s own life. How much is that? Well, Maniscalco plays a character named Sebastian Maniscalco. He got engaged to the woman of his dreams Ellie (here the charming Leslie Bibb) and was finally invited to her very wealthy family’s Fourth of July weekend. Soon, Sebastian’s father, Salvo, is also invited. Salvo is an Italian immigrant from Sicily who owns a beauty salon, has a fierce work ethic, is downright cheesy, has a tough opinion, and is well-suited to work in characters like charming stand-up comedies and movies. It has a few other features.
De Niro is reliable in comedy mode. Here, Salvo, the actor with his hand gestures and frequent monosyllabic exasperated yells, sometimes resembles a softer, gentler version of Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Supporting characters David Rush and Kim Cattrall provide good comic foil for De Niro as future step-parents.
Sadly, the film runs for less than an hour and a half (directed by director Laura Terluso with a palpable sense of resourcefulness) and shows how quickly “Amiable Insignificance” It shows how we can move to “banal and struggling”. The morbid poultry impromptu gag with a peacock falls through the cracks, but the speed to the happy ending is straight out of the Hallmark screenwriter’s handbook.
about my father
at the theater. It is rated PG-13 for language, partial nudity, and improvised poultry humor. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. at the theater.
