Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Konterr Brilliant and touching

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

sol1218 (Some Spoilers) The film "Dinner Rush" comes across like a combination of the Food Channel's Guy Fieri "Diners Drive-ins & Dives" and the "Sopranos". We have successful Tribeca restaurateur Louis Carpo, Danney Aiello, being hassled by these two mobsters from Queens Carmen & Paolo, Mike McGlone & Alex Corrado, who are trying to muscle their way into Louis' five star Italian Restaurant "The Trattoria" which has been in the Carpo family for some three generations. These two murderous thugs go so far as offing in a mob hit Louis' good friend and partner in the "Trattoria" Enrico Coventie, Fran Borgiorno, just to show him that they mean business. The business that they want is to become part owners of the eatery even though they, despite stuffing their faces with fine Italian food and wines, know nothing at all about the restaurant business!The two mobster have an ace up their sleeves in getting Louis to go along with their efforts to get part, and later all, of his business by having his compulsive gambler son and second or #2 chef at the "Trattoria" Ducan, Kirk Acevedo, in their hip pockets for $13,000.00 in gambling debts. By Paolo & Carmen using Ducan's gambling as a way to get to Louis has them feel he'll pay them off in making them partners in his eating establishment. This all backfires on them with Louis taking the 13 grand out of the till and paying them off in order to get the two mobsters off his and Duncan's back.It's obvious right from the start that Poalo & Carmen only want to get hold of Louis' restaurant which is knocking them, the customers, dead with the mind boggling dishes put out by Louis' #1 son and top chef in the joint Udo, Edwardo Ballerini, a man who loves cooking his dishes as much as Paolo and Carmen love eating them. Running the kitchen like a hard as nails US Marine Drill Sergeant Udo won't tolerate the slightest infraction of the Culinary Code of Ethics! We see earlier in the movie Udo can one of his cooks on the spot in him dicing , a major violation of the Code, instead of chopping chives. Udo for his part feels that he's being short changed by his dad in not being made a partner in the restaurant, which both Paolo & Carmen want to be, even though his dad thinks that his dishes are just out of this world and are filling the place to capacity every night!***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Louis being the man of peace, and having superhuman self restraint, that he is was more then willing to give up his bookie operation to Paolo & Carmen in order to keep them out of his life and restaurant but when they hit his best friend Enrico and then shook down #2 son Duncon that's when they went too far much too far with him. And that's when Louis decided to pay them off big time using his beloved restaurant "The Trattoria" as a trap in luring those two rats to their deaths!Very probably the very best of the many Mafia restaurant mob hit-jobs movies that's a lot like the real hit on gangster Dutch "The Dutchman" Schultz back in October 1935 in a Newark New Jersey spaghetti joint. Louis Carpo at first tries to reason with the smug and arrogant Queens thugs who seemed to have greatly underestimated him in his non violent attitude towards them. All Louis wanted was to talk things over and come to some reasonable decision with Paolo and Carmen but the two thought that they had him boxed into a corner. They didn't realize that he set them up right from the start and in the process had them stuff themselves, like a last meal for a convict about to be executed, before he had the boom lowered on them!

gainestillinger Imagine sitting in one of New York's up and coming Italian restaurants, sipping an espresso with some cracking jazz music playing, and watching a pretty damned interesting story unfold. At the main table sits Louis Cropa (Danny Aiello) with his personal assistant. Louis owns the joint and is being intimidated by Black and Blue, two highly contrasting gangsters (despite their names) who want a piece of this highly lucrative business, which is only making this much money in the first place because of Udo, Louis' son, played by Edoardo Ballerini, a super-talented fame hungry chef who is waiting to be given ownership by his father. Not only this, but the souschef chef, Duncan (Louis' favourite chef) is a gambler who owes Black and Blue money, lots of it. AND there's a strange guy at the bar who is watching all of this unfold.We float around the restauraunt and share in each of the main characters' plights and observing some spectacular looking food being made by tense and lightening fast cooks. We watch through medium shots as if we are at a number of tables around the place, talking with the waitresses and laughing with the bartender as he plays some fun general knowledge games with punters. In fact, the waitresses' night is just as interesting as the main protagonists'. They get hassle galore from pretentious customers who treat them as second class citizens, one customer actually says 'Doesn't it bother you when they (waitresses) tell you their names?' in full earshot of a waitresses name that now escapes me. Nice. Still, it makes for compelling viewing. And of course, amidst and around all of this we still have Louis and Udo, Black and Blue and Duncan getting through the night in various ways. It is this toing and froing between the main plot and the waitresses' subplot that keeps this film vibrant and interesting. We don't mind being pulled away from the main action as it unfolds and are happy to be patient in waiting for the finale.The end, where a man is shot in the basement toilets makes and nearly breaks the film. It is gratifying and yet badly planned. Considering that it is a professional hit, you would think that they would wait until the mark had left the place and then kill them in an alleyway or something. This does not kill the film by any stretch, but it does leave the end up in the air in more than one way. Still, don't let that stop you from finding out who dies and how and what for; it's a dessert worth waiting for.Not bad for 21 days' filming!

Ed Uyeshima If you like to flip the channel dexterously between "The Sopranos" and the Food Network, this 2000 movie may be for you. Directed by Bob Giraldi, who is still probably most famous for directing a pre-surgery Michael Jackson in his "Beat It" video, the story is set in one evening almost entirely within the confines of a trendy downtown Manhattan restaurant in the trendy TriBeCa neighborhood. Giraldi succeeds in developing and maintaining a sense of combustible energy when it comes to an upscale restaurant's inner workings. He should know since he is part-owner of several such restaurants of which the one featured, Gigino Trattoria, is one. By comparison, the film feels less assured when it comes to the cross currents of its multiple dramatic elements.Although the movie has an omnibus feel about it, the plot primarily focuses on the inevitable conflicts between Louis, the old-school owner and Udo, his ambitious, hotshot chef son. It helps that Danny Aiello plays Louis in such an economical fashion as he can make his character's melodramatic situation convincing - quitting a bookmaking side-business that got his partner killed and handing over the reigns of the eatery to his son. Screenwriters Rick Shaughnessy and Brian Kalata have crafted a tight script, though there is a cursory feel to the film that gives us a Robert Altman-like hodgepodge of eccentric characters. Their lives are shuffled between courses with some odd casting choices that somehow work, for example, Sandra Bernhard as a harpy food critic in a bad wig and John Corbett as a deceptively casual bar regular.Edoardo Ballerini is not particularly interesting as Udo, but Kirk Acevedo provides jumpy energy to Duncan, the sous-chef whose gambling debt has a domino effect on the rest of the characters. The mob angle is played up with stock characters embodied by Mike McGlone and Alex Corrado as two obvious hoods, and there is even a pretentious dinner party headed by a pompous art gallery owner portrayed with obnoxious languor by Mark Margolis. However, it is the hustle of the food preparation in the kitchen when the film really takes off, in particular, when Udo creates a sensational-looking, customized lobster tower for Bernhard's character. It's surprising that Giraldi has not made more films, but at least he sticks with his obvious passion and comes up with an often-interesting dish that I have to believe Anthony Bourdain would love.

fiorerr I am a hedonist and believe a film should entertain though I would not necessarily dis a film that only educated. Dinner Rush entertains but I suspect it would especially appeal to those of us who enjoyed the NYC restaurant scene of the eighties and nineties and did not take its pretensions too seriously. The flick maybe be limited in its appeal to, dare I say, NYC yuppies with a sense of humor. Within its context, though, it works very well. So you can give it an 8 or a 3 depending on where you come from. The flick's characters' behavior is not to far from what I knew and appreciated back then. The movie captures a slice of life from a time and place in our recent past. Personally I highly recommend it with the caveats stated above.