You know the story, but "Brooklyn Rules" is a comfortable fit
It's tough growing up in the shadow of the mob. Such is the message of Michael Corrente's "Brooklyn Rules," an agreeable if faintly generic drama about three buddies facing young adulthood in the gritty Brooklyn neighborhood in which they've spent their lives. Corrente ("American Buffalo," "Outside Providence") has cast his film well; though you're never surprised by the directions in which the movie goes, you believe that its central trio are longtime pals. They speak in easy rhythms, riffing off each other smoothly.
Michael (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Carmine (Scott Caan) and Bobby (Jerry Ferrara) have been friends since childhood; now 20-ish in 1985, they still spend most of their free time together, kidding each other about their clothes ("You look like the Italian Fred MacMurray," says one of them, reacting to fashionable Carmine's cardigan), their girlfriends and their different paths in life. Bobby, the stable one, wants to work at the post office and marry his sweet girlfriend. Carmine, the dangerous one, is drawn into the ranks of the local mob (headed by Alec Baldwin, in one of his now-trademark tough-guy roles).
And Michael, the film's central character and narrator, is trying to reinvent himself. A prelaw student at Columbia University, he's not above pulling a few fast ones to improve his grade. (A swift bluebook switch gets him out of a midterm — a tactic current undergraduates might find intriguing.) Dressing as a to-the-manor-born preppy, he catches the eye of a pretty blonde (Mena Suvari) and contemplates an entirely different kind of life. But Carmine's connections, not to mention a thoroughly nasty mob incident involving a meat slicer, bring the trio of friends into a shared danger, causing Michael to wonder if he can ever leave his past behind.
Ultimately, it's a story of friendship, and one that's been told before. Its pleasures are small but distinct, many in Caan's portrayal of flinty Carmine: his cocky, upright stance as he tries to look cool in a matador jacket (failing, but he gets points for effort); his reckless smile as he dives into a fight. "Brooklyn Rules" doesn't exactly rule, but fans of the cast will find much to enjoy.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com
Movie review
"Brooklyn Rules," with Freddie Prinze Jr., Scott Caan, Jerry Ferrara, Mena Suvari, Alec Baldwin. Directed by Michael Corrente, from a screenplay by Terence Winter.
99 minutes. Rated R for violence, pervasive language and some sexual content.