Claudio Carvalho In the 30's, in New York, the coffin of the leftist gangster Johnny Tempio (Vincent Gallo) is brought to the house of his older brother Ray (Christopher Walken) for the wake of family and friends. Ray is a cold gangster that likes to read and is married to Jean (Annabella Sciorra). His brother Chez (Chris Penn) is a hot head that runs a bar and is married to Clara (Isabella Rossellini). Ray decides to revenge the murder of his younger brother and believes the gangster Gaspare (Benicio Del Toro) is the one who killed Johnny. Meanwhile Chez has a breakdown with tragic consequences for the Tempio brothers."The Funeral" is a violent movie directed by Abel Ferrara with great characters that are developed through flashbacks along the main storyline. There are great performances and scenes but unfortunately, it seems that neither the writer nor the director knew how to end the story that has an unsatisfactory conclusion. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Os Chefões" ("The Bosses")

Turtle Heart Pointless. Abysmal in every respect in my view. Looking at the cast I was really excited to see this film. What I saw was a story so pointless, acting so intense yet superficial, disjointed continuity, extremely poor, choppy editing, over-crowded effects, pointless and gratuitous violence. A truck filled with radios explodes? From what? This film assassinates the character of Italians. While Chris Penn has center stage, his character in now way had the depth of soul to be the character he depicted with excessive boredom. Aside from "Artificial Intelligence" which I view as the worst film ever, this one almost ties it. The director and the editors as well failed. Darkness for the sake of darkness,murder for film dollars. Just a terrible film.

michaeldaly99 This was one DIFFERENT gangster picture, brought to you by Abel Ferarra. I first came to know the rather unique director from his infamous DRILLER KILLER... Which is really 90 minutes of my life I'd like to have back. It's the one DVD I own that I'd love to not own. The one DVD I don't even CONSIDER rewatching. And with good reason. It's a jackass of a film. I can't go into it any more without swearing, and then my review won't get put up. Anyway, years after watching that...movie, I began to wonder how Ferarra is so known among film fans. Nobody likes The Driller Killer, so that can't be it. I looked him up here, and saw that such noted actors as Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel have worked with him!! I was quite surprised and then I came across this one rather cheap. And I love gangster films so maybe I'm being a bit biased here.But this one was rather interesting. These aren't Scorsese style gangsters. They're guys in black suits but their life is much less glamarous. There is much rape and violence and little laughs or friendship. The film focuses on three brothers.. Christopher Walken is legendary in his role as wise but aging family head Ray. Chris Penn plays his rather temperamental (surprise surprise, it being Chris Penn) brother, and Vincent Gallo plays young foolish brother Johnny.The film opens with the recently deceased Johnny lying in his coffin and everyone gathered around crying. How did he get to be there? The film tells this through flashbacks which occur every few minutes throughout the film, and we also see a part from Ray's youth. Very skilfully done! The time switching happens without us noticing, the film flows so well that we're not in the least bit distracted.Christopher Walken is Christopher Walken in a Christopher Walken role, Ray... He's taking the Michael Corleone route here, the wise guy, the darker older brother who makes all the decisions for the family. And he's great at it... Chris Penn is Chris Penn in another Chris Penn role. He's completely insane. A brutal, angry man who loses it over nothing and spends his time on screen shouting and swearing at those around him. Chris Penn is really good at this, but I'd like to see him take on an emotional character... He's just doing Nice Guy Eddie over and over again. Vincent Gallo does the Freddie Corleone of the family well, but he's a bit unbelievable as a gangster and the camera has too many close ups on him. Also present in a supporting role is John Ventimiglia, who plays Artie Bucco from The Sopranos! Just thought I'd mention him, brilliant man. There's Benicio Del Toro as the rival gangster boss. He's pretty creepy but doesn't have a big enough part to do the character justice. Overall, the acting out of the two leads - Walken and Penn - is excellent. Typical, but excellent.Ferarra's been known to be violent and disturbing. Maybe if I'd watched this film a few years back it might have affected me, but it didn't in the least. I am now immune to offense by violence. Some of the film's violent highlights, though, include a stabbing in the heart with a butcher knife, shooting two innocent truck drivers with a shotgun, raping a teenage prostitute (who sold her soul) and an ending pistol massacre.Despite all this, however, it's an excellent if depressing picture, with many deep and dark performances. The violence is not over the top compared to the likes of De Palma or Scorsese, and it is not disturbing, or maybe that's just me.I will definitely be seeing more Ferarra movies!

paul2001sw-1 Abel Ferrera's gangster film 'The Funeral' resembles a pared-down version of Scorcese's 'Goodfellas', or a truer version of 'The Sopranos'. Utterly unsentimental and chilling, it refuses to add the faintest shine of glamour to its protagonists' lives, and the cast, headed by the vampirish Christopher Walkern, are universally excellent. And yet for all this, it's not actually that interesting. The movie industry is fascinated with violence as a subject; yet the freakishly horrible behaviour of the mafia may be a sad fact of life, but it's also an oddity. This is a good film, but it belongs to an over-exposed genre, with little to say about how ordinary people live. If I have to watch a gangster film, I'd rather chose Jim Jarmusch's hilarious 'Ghost Dog' than a movie that takes its subject so seriously.