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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 27777
Released: June 20, 2006 |
| Our Price: $3.38 |
| Used Price: $10.99 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Beppo, Ezmo, Mario...uh-oh! When Kid Sally and his gang of goodfellas come up with a plan to grab a piece of the mob action, it'll be a no-brainer. The screen version of newspaperman Jimmy Breslin's best-selling comic novel about a Brooklyn turf war has all chambers firing. Jerry Orbach (Law & Order) plays Kid Sally, a small-timer aiming for the big time by targeting rival Baccala (raspy-voiced Lionel Stander). And on-the-rise screen giant Robert De Niro plays Mario, posing as a priest in the Kid's scheme to give Last Rites to Baccala. It's the perfect crime. Planned by perfect idiots.
Description of The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight:
Take a glance at the credits and you'll see that director James Goldstone's 1971 comedy The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight is the work of some mighty impressive names. Screenwriter Waldo Salt had already won an Oscar for Midnight Cowboy, and would go on to write Coming Home and Serpico. Jimmy Breslin, upon whose book the movie is based, was a celebrated New York newspaper columnist. The cast includes a young Robert DeNiro, Jerry Orbach (decades before being unforgettably cast as Det. Lennie Briscoe in Law & Order), film veteran Lionel Stander, the very appealing Leigh Taylor-Young, and even Herve Villechaize (yes, Tattoo from Fantasy Island, except here his every line of dialogue has been dubbed by someone without an accent). Unfortunately, the film is decidedly less than the sum of its parts. The cast acquits itself adequately, notwithstanding some heavy-handed stereotypes (Jo Van Fleet, as the Orbach character's knife-happy mama, wears out her welcome early in the first reel). But Goldstone's background was mostly in television, and he handles the film with a heavy hand more suited to a bad sit-com. The story, such as it is, concerns the efforts of the hapless Kid Sally Palumbo (Orbach) and his dumb cronies to usurp mob boss Baccala's (Stander) power. Sally and his gang are inept--it's they, not Baccala, who keep getting knocked off--but not as lame as the movie, which relies on obvious gags, poorly-timed physical shtick, and an unconvincing romance between DeNiro's Italian bike racer-con man and Taylor-Young's Angela (as Sally's sister, although she's about as Italian as Mary Tyler Moore). Some of the bits are amusing, especially those featuring a lion (don't ask) in Sally's charge, but by and large, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight is a dull disappointment. The DVD includes no bonus material. --Sam Graham
The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight Reviews:
funny movie 
2008-10-01 - loved this movie. I remembered it from the time it first was in theaters but never saw the DVD anywhere. The stereotypes are hysterical.
C'est terrible 
2008-02-18 - I've read Jimmy Breslin's book on which this movie was based. The book is at least 10 times better than the movie. The book, which was great, has been so dissected here to make this very bad film. I cannot begin to understand how such a good story could result in such tripe. Robert DeNiro was very young and naive to agree to be any part of this, and it pains me to watch such a great actor be involved in this .
Here are a few things in particular that make this such a disappointment. First, when you read the book Breslin goes into great detail about what happens in certain parts of the story. You'd think whoever wrote the screenplay would have taken this into account, but neglects to for some kind of convenience, or thinking that whoever sees this won't appreciate it. Second, DeNiro's character in the book decides to stay in New York to pursue an art career. They forego this aspect of his character in the movie, and you wonder why. This gives his character some added dimension in the book, and he encounters some interesting people because of this. Instead Mario (who DeNiro plays) is just made out to be a petty thief. Third, the Kid Sally Palombo character is diluted in the movie. In the book you really get a sense of who this guy is, and his importance in the story, as with some of his cohorts. In the film they're all just a bunch of keystone cop kind of wiseguys.
I don't know if this review will help anyone. If you don't believe me, read the highly entertaining book then watch this, or vice versa. If you read the book first, prepare for disappointment when you see the film. This story offered a lot of potential and was dumbed down to make a film.
Bought This For A Friend
2008-01-07 - I got this as a gift for a friend and he was really happy with it. He laughed so hard!
The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
2007-05-13 - A lot of great talent but, Takes too long to get to the point. -- Don't bother
Really, it isn't all that bad 
2006-11-27 - This flick is getting panned by reviewers who measure it with the yardstick of DeNiro's other work and Orbach's later greatness as Lennie Briscoe in "Law & Order", but if the truth be known, it's a precursor of "Johnny Dangerously". Orbach plays Kid Sally Palumbo, a "young Turk" of the Mob, resentful of his boss Baccala (Lionel Stander), who has the cliche "moustache Pete" old-line contempt for Kid Sally's small faction. Urged on by his grandmother Big Mama (Jo Van Fleet), he follows her advice not to take anything from anybody. When the Palumbo faction is finally rounded up by the cops, she has a lot to say to news cameras after Kid Sally just flips them the bird. Her first two bits of invective make broadcast as they watch themselves on the news, but then censors start to bleep her out. At that point, she leaps to her feet and shakes her fist at the screen, denying that she'd ever said "beep". The later work "Johnny Dangerously" was dismissed as "puerile" by reviewers and so it was. So's this one, but there's a certain entertainment value to "dopey fun", as you see every night of the week on TV's "reality shows". But they don't get slammed very much. I wonder why.
