There are movies made that are so bad they’re good. That is to say they are made with the intent of being a good movie but due to budget constraints, over acting and other variables, they end up being really bad movies…that viewers can enjoy by laughing at them. And then there are just really bad movies like THE LAST GODFATHER.
Harvey Keitel (completely wasted here) stars as Don Carini, a Mafioso who is in his declining years and has decided to pass on the title of Don. Tony V (Michael Rispoli) seems the logical choice, the right hand man of the Don for many years. So you can imagine his surprise to learn that the Don had a son years ago that he kept away from everything to protect him.
That son is Young-gu (Hyung-rae Shim), the love child that Don Carini had when he was in hiding in Korea. Young-gu’s mother took a bullet for the Don and to protect his son he placed him in an orphanage that he took care of. Now grown, Young-gu is brought to America to take over his father’s empire. The problem is that when you say Young-gu is innocent it doesn’t completely describe him. He’s a bumbling idiot.
The Don’s men can’t believe their eyes. This is the man they are supposed to follow. The Don puts Tony and his sidekick Macho (John Pinette) in charge of educating Young-gu in the business. They start with loan sharking and Young-gu can’t get the hang of it. When they try to teach him to defend himself he does so more by accident than by intent.
On one job they take him along on, Young-gu meets Nancy Bonfante (Jocelin Donahue), an attractive young woman he inadvertently saves from a supposed mugger. The two fall in love unaware that her father is Don Bonfante (Jon Polito) and has been at war for years with Don Carini. It’s Romeo and Juliet…sort of.
Trouble happens when Don Bonfante’s right hand man Vinnie (a totally out of place Jason Mewes) decides to make his move and take over the family. Wanting Nancy for himself he starts a fight between the two families that ends in a gun battle where few if anyone gets hit by even a stray bullet. So who wins? Who cares!
The movie is filled with slapstick style comedy that has been done, redone and overdone for years. The pranks seen on screen were done by Red Skelton back in the sixties on television and offer nothing new here. Movies which feature an innocent character who is a total idiot are insulting to viewers unless the film is intended perhaps for children. But this movie is filled with gun battles between gangsters, a love story of sorts and all sorts of things not intended for kids. That makes it too adult for kids and too stupid for adults. So who’s this movie for then?
Let’s put it this way. If you took the NUTTY PROFESSOR films of Eddie Murphy or even his DR. DOOLITTLE films, both family friendly series, and placed them against this movie they would see like Oscar contenders. This movie is THAT bad. If you were to rent this movie for $1 at a Redbox you are spending too much for it. This movie is so bad that they should pay YOU to watch it.
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