Gretchen Mol Movie:

		List Price: $9.95		Label: Platinum Disc Salesrank: 20761 Released: August 9, 2005
		Our Price: $3.10
		Used Price: $2.24
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 2-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVD

The Funeral Reviews:
The Funeral DVD
2009-01-07 - The Funeral is a good movie, as I had seen it before; however, the DVD is of poor quality and therefore I didn't watch it. I wish Amazon would provide information on the DVD label, so we would know what company has produced the DVD.

If you like all main actors, but you've never heard of the movie...
2008-12-31 - There's a good chance you should pass on it. Let's just skip the part that nobody could seriously believe Isabella Rossellini and Chris Penn as a couple and get right down to the stuff that doesn't make sense in the movie.

Trying to combine guilt and revenge in a gangster movie is like trying to put garlic on a cannoli. You've got two great themes, but they rarely can be combined to make something tasty. Walken's Ray has plenty of things to feel guilty about, not least among them his failure to shape his little brother Johnny's character after the death of their father.

While the combination of brooding and vengeful thoughts works for the young Hamlet, we expect more from the supposedly mature Ray. Either he can reflect on his role in his brother's death, or he can pursue the killer with a focused vengeance. Here, though, he does neither. The only tension in his pursuit is whether he'll get the right guy. If this tension had been the central theme of the story, it could very well have been more interesting.

Roger Ebert in an overall positive review of the movie described the ending as disappointing. That's a bit of an understatement. It's more like preposterous and lazy. It's hard to say why without giving things away though.

While thought this movie was quite poor, in a nod to the many positive reviews, many by folks I trust, I will say that you know and share the tastes of reviewers who recommend this movie, then go for it. For me though, this was a muddled, dreary tale that never really established its point of view.

Food for thought
2008-07-01 - Intersting if not wooden movie. Took eons to unravel; but had some intersting points about God and existance.
If you can tolerate slow pace this is for you.

Very good film
2008-06-19 - It is a very good movie. I really enjoyed the way the story was told. The casting was also very well done. Walken, Penn, Del Toro all played great roles.

If you enjoy movies like Miller's Crossing, or other low key organized crime films, you will enjoy the funeral.

"Once you pull the trigger you can't turn back!"
2007-06-15 - This film is not THE GODFATHER; it is not MYSTIC RIVER; it is not GOODFELLAS; it is not THE DEPARTED. This is THE FUNERAL!!! I simply will not lump this film into a category that defines this as another "gangster movie."

Director Abel Ferrara (BAD LIEUTENANTS) has crafted a tense and unflinching psychological look at three Italian brothers in the politically/crime charged 1930's who have been scarred by the violence into which they have been plummeted from their earliest childhood. The film carefully examines the deep contradictions of religion, family,morality and fidelity that combat the souls of those who "inherit" the criminal world as their family legacy. Unlike so many "Italian gangster movies", THE FUNERAL has incredible heart and soul. These characters are "trapped" in a world that causes such vaccilation of emotion that no matter how they might try to change they simply cannot.

Yes..this film is full of bloody violence, sex and explosive rage, but Abel Ferrara asks us to understand WHY these brothers and their companions act the way they do.Ferrara wants us to examine these men and their women who fall for and fear them. We are also forced to examine the continued place that Roman Catholicism and it's teachings had as a foundation for life and thought of these people.

As a rule, I simply do not care for mob/violent films. I must say,though, that THE FUNERAL is completely unique. The script is intelligent in that instead of senseless and gratuitous violence, we are asked to think about the causes, motivations and devastating consequences of violence when it is passed down from generation to generation.

One special note about the acting: CHRIS PENN is downright frightening as middle brother Chez.

The ending was a positive shocker!!!