The Florentine
The Florentine
| 19 April 1999 (USA)
The Florentine Trailers

A slice-of-life story unfolds inside The Florentine, a bar in a Pennsylvania steel town whose brightest days are behind it, leaving behind many of life's disillusioned "losers." Its owner, Whitey (Michael Madsen), is deep in debt to the town's loan shark, Joe McCollough (Burt Young), and desperate for a path forward which won't cost him the bar. His sister, Molly (Virginia Madsen), is days away from her long-awaited nuptials, and then her former fiancé, Teddy (Tom Sizemore), shows up in town for the first time since leaving her at the altar years before. Ne'er-do-well Billy Belasco (Jim Belushi) runs a con on Frankie (Luke Perry) to steal the money for the wedding caterer, while long-time regular Bobby (Chris Penn) becomes a patron-cum-inhabitant as he hides from his fast-crumbling marriage to Vikki (Mary Stuart Masterson). Every plot in this multi-layered story seems to be at its nadir just as a pair of unlikely heroes emerge out of the backdrop to turn everything around.

Reviews
Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!
NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!
Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
emtp563 I found the movie itself to be extremely boring. I've seen the movie two times and I really can't tell you what it's about. In summary, it's about a bunch of guys just hanging out.What kept me captivated was the use of my town for the filming of the movie. When the production crew was in town filming, it definitely was a big to-do. I was somewhat disappointed that the movie never made it to the theatre's in this country.Most of the movie was filmed in Easton, PA. The interior of the bar is Mother's Tavern in Centre Square, Easton. The exterior of the bar is the Mount Vernon Ale House, at 6th and Northampton St., Easton, PA. The neighborhood scenes were filmed in South Side Bethlehem, PA and the industrial scenes were filmed at the Bethlehem Steel facility.
Andrew Hunsicker This movie tries to be great. It does not succeed but I'll take an effort like this over much of the movies I see out of Hollywood. I was reminded a great deal of the Deer Hunter (scenes in the PA town) in the look and feel of the movie. Beautiful acting by the great cast is the real strong point of this movie. The performances by Mike Madsen, Virginia Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jeremy Davies and Chris Penn are believable. The movie has some great shots and an incredible soundtrack lead by Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen. My only complaint is that it seems to have too much going on. There are at least seven different subplots in the movie. I got the feeling that much was cut out to make it to the 100 minute run time. This movie should have been allowed to be three hours. This is not the fault of the filmmakers. This is well worth the price of a rental or a purchase.
ktmphd This character study/slice of life story is very well done. The cast is stellar and each of them portray their characters as real, the kinds of people we have all met at some time as we wander through life.It is the first time I have seen the two Madsens together in a film hope to see them team up again. Sizemore, Halbrook, Penn et.al. all team up to serve a slice of life to the audience that shows real life to us, with it humor, tragedy, comedy, pathos, hopelessness and hopefulness.This is well worth the cost of the rental.
MJive I was very anxious to see this movie since it was filmed where I live, in the Lehigh Valley. It took a long time since it was filmed--about two years ago--to be released. And I must say I'm very happy with it. Great cast and it was a pretty involving story. The Florentine is mostly composed of short scenes between different pairs of actors, and it moves along at a pretty even pace, though it is perhaps a bit slow at times. Overall, I'd rate it a 7 out of 10.