Looking at all the good reviews this film received, I can only say, that the filmmaker's family must have wrote most of them. This movie is such an embarrassing oeuvre, that the principal actors should be banned from ever being in a film again. Even Audrey Landers, who is usually a decent actress with an impressive cv, acts wooden and distant. Lilo Brancato is a poor man's Robert DeNiro, and that is not a compliment. The editing was awful with no exposition as to how we get from one place to another in the film's plot. It's as if a series of short films were put together with absolutely no segues. I kept watching, hoping for one little redeeming quality and was left numb and disappointed. The writing is atrocious, I am not sure it even had a script and was ad- libbed, badly. Here's the plot so you won't waste precious time watching it. Filmaker, director, and writer Steve Stanulis plays Nico, whose daughter is dying from brain cancer. His wife played by Tara Reid is an NYPD Internal Affairs Detective, which is totally unconvincing. I am not sure why that was even in the story. Since the bar that he owns with three other friends is failing, they resort to getting involved with Uncle Angelo played by Al Sapienza who just seems tired throughout the film. Lilo Brancato and Joseph Russo play brothers. Sonny and Charlie. So, the four of them start committing robberies for Uncle Angelo. They pull off a diamond heist where what they steal looks like bad costume jewelry from Goodwill or a Salvation Army store. Then they impersonate cops and rip off a drug dealer. Uncle Angelo decides to give all the stolen money to drug rehab agencies. WTF? After 2 jobs, Sonny is like, "Screw this, I'm going with plan B." What plan B is, I am not sure. First he meets with a sketchy Asian dude and makes some kind of deal with him that is not explained. The Asian dude says to his associate, "I never want to see him again." The implication being that he is going to get whacked by the Asian guy, right? The next scene we see Sonny getting into a Escalade and is talking to Feds. Is the guy sitting next to him his lawyer or some guy he just met? Who knows? Meanwhile there are these two stupid NYPD detectives running around accomplishing nothing. Why are they even in the film? Did Stanulis offer them parts in the film for investment money? There seems to be no other purpose for them in the film. Next scene is Sonny in a jail cell (when did that happen?) talking with his brother Charlie. Charlie decides to be a "stand-up guy" and side with Uncle Angelo, who has his goon blow his brains out. Oops, guess that wasn't a good decision. Also in the film is Charlie's stripper girlfriend played by Erin O'Brien in another pointless role. If she is there for eye candy, they could have done better. She is unconvincing as a stripper and has the body of a 13- year old boy. Why was she even in this film? It ends up with Lilo Brancato fake crying, Charlie dead, Nico's daughter overdosing on heroin, and Nico getting arrested, I think. It just ends with him on the steps of his house and Tara Reid inside screaming with grief. The story is all over the place and we don't know how we got from one scene to the next. This film is useful for one thing, it is so bad, it should be used in film school to show how not to make a movie. I have seen better films made by high school students on Youtube.
Review of 5th Borough
