MAFIA!

• Starring Lloyd Bridges, Jay Mohr and Christina Applegate
• Directed by Jim Abrahams
• Rated PG-13, with profanity, comic violence and sex references; running time 86 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 6

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(July 24, 1998) -- Little Italy vendors are selling pasta-on-a-stick in Mafia!, the latest comic lunacy from Jim Abrahams, co-creator of Airplane!, Naked Gun and Hot Shots!

Beyond a penchant for titles with exclamation marks, Abrahams has become Hollywood's most consistent movie parodist.

Apparently inspired by the movie parodies in Mad magazine and the comedies of Mel Brooks, Abrahams has skewered disaster flicks, police sagas and military movies.

In Mafia!, he pokes fun at mob movies, particularly the Godfather epics and Martin Scorsese's films. And because the movies are so stylized and take themselves so seriously, they're easy targets.

But parody, one of the simpler forms of comedy, quickly wears out its welcome. The most memorable film parodies tend to be short sketches: Carol Burnett on Gone With the Wind, the Saturday Night Live take-offs of Jaws and The Godfather.

During Mafia!'s 86 long minutes, I kept wishing John Belushi were still alive, on the off-chance he'd be the one satirizing Marlon Brando as the Godfather.

Instead we have Lloyd Bridges, who died in March, in one of his last roles. But Bridges isn't nimble enough in the physical comedy here. Nor does he capture any of Brando's distinctive nuances.

Jay Mohr and Christina Applegate are more successful as they poke fun at the Godfather roles originated by Al Pacino and Diane Keaton.

As Airplane! and Naked Gun fans know, Abrahams and his cohorts enliven their films by layering unexpected jokes on top of each other. (Abrahams believes in throwing fistfuls of sight gags, puns and punch lines at audiences; if you laugh at 20 percent of them, you're laughing a lot.)

Such parodies also boost the egos of movie buffs who feel proud at recognizing so many film references.

In Mafia!, I detected spoofs of Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather I and II, Casino, GoodFellas, The English Patient and Il Postino.

There's also a hilarious jab at Forrest Gump, along with a flabby send-up of Riverdance, featuring an overweight, high-stepping Irish dancer who becomes a mob assassin.

Mafia! is funniest in the early going, but eventually runs out of steam as the jokes become more obvious.

Like pasta-on-a-stick, Mafia! finally goes stale.