Wise Guys

With movies like Scarface, The Untouchables, and Carlitto's Way, Brian De Palma has proven that he knows his way around a gangster film. And with 1986's Wise Guys, he demonstarted that he knew how to poke fun at the genre too.

Best friends Harry and Moe, Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo, are flunkies for mob boss Anthony Castelo, Dan Hedaya. When Anthony sends the two to the racetrack to make a bet for him, Harry decides to place the bet on a different horse because Anthony isn't very lucky at the track. Little do the two guys know that their boss has rigged the race and now they owe him a lot of cash. Unable to pay, Anthony assigns the two friends to kill the other one.

This movie is a lot of fun. DeVito and Piscopo make a pretty good team. And the supporting cast, that also includes Harvey Kietel, Ray Sharkey, and Captain Lou Albano, is terrific. It's kind of strange that Piscopo didn't have more of a film career. When he was on SNL, he was probably the second most popular cast member, right after Eddie Murphy. Then he was in two great films, Johnny Dangerously and this one, and then nothing.Oddly enough, DeVito was also in Johnny Dangerously. I guess his follow up to this, the zombie cop film Dead Heat with Treat Williams, wasn't the hit he was banking on.

There's a lot of laughs to be had in Wise Guys, especially for those who love mob comedies.

It's available on dvd thru Warner Archive.