Review: Uncle Nino

Though convinced it’s helping people to rediscover their roots, the film succeeds only in planting corn.

Uncle Nino
Photo: Lange Film Releasing

Arriving in Gated Community, USA from his native Italy with motivations unknown, Nino (Pierrino Mascarino) unsuspectingly walks into that hilarious “I Learned it from Watching You” PSA from the ’80s. The man’s estranged nephew Robert (Joe Mantegna) is so busy with work he’s begun to ignore his wife Marie (a lovely Anne Archer) and expect the worst out of his children, denying his daughter Gina (Gina Mantegna) a dog and his son Bobby (Trevor Morgan) a place to rehearse his music. Enter the fiddle-playing Nino, who befriends the youngins when he says mowing the lawn “sucks” (five bucks he’ll be playing in Bobby’s band by film’s end!), gives Gina a dog without asking permission (ten bucks says Robert is going to blow his gasket!), and shows everyone how to make pizza. Nino comes to America boasting an unnatural obsession with Abraham Lincoln. Why? Ostensibly because the 16th president freed the slaves and Nino is here to save White America from itself. It’s actually rather amusing how glibly the film assumes its audience will buy into the condescending notion that whites are all inhospitable bastards, a condition easily remedied with a little gardening and homemade Italian wine. Though convinced it’s helping people to rediscover their roots, the film—however sincere it may be at encouraging family togetherness—succeeds only in planting corn.

Score: 
 Cast: Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Trevor Morgan, Gina Mantegna, Pierrino Mascarino, Duke Doyle, Daniel Adebayo, Michael Stahl, Shane Williams  Director: Bob Shallcross  Screenwriter: Bob Shallcross  Distributor: Lange Film Releasing  Running Time: 104 min  Rating: PG  Year: 2003  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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