Country: United States
Genre: Satire
Director: John Huston
Year: 1985
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE
Richard Condon novels are tricky to adapt. On the surface, they seem to be broad satire, but underneath, they are vicious and deadly serious. Make the satire too broad and you lose the bite. Play it too straight and the targets of Condon’s satire go unscathed. Prizzi’s Honor manages to walk a fine line between these two extremes.
Part of the success of Prizzi’s Honor is probably due to the fact that Condon adapted his own novel, but director John Huston deserves credit as well, somehow giving the material snap and crackle even at 130 minutes, somewhat long for a satire, while still giving the rich characterizations their full due.
Charley Partanna (Jack Nicholson), a button man for the Prizzi family, falls in love with an outsider (Kathleen Turner) in the same profession. When his personal life comes into conflict with the expectations of his work “family,” how will Prizzi reconcile his obligations with honor?
It’s a loaded question. The Prizzi family is obviously a metaphor for the corporate life, where you are expected to put work first, and everything else second. Condon questions how corporations frame this dynamic as a matter of loyalty, responsibility, and even honor. That such a potentially depressing subject provides so many chuckles (that stick in the throat) is a tribute to Richard Condon’s skill as a satirist.
Director Huston and scriptwriter Condon are aided immeasurably by a knockout cast. Besides the leads, they’ve got William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi, who disguises his venality beneath a superficially hospitable exterior; Anjelica Huston as Maerose Prizzi — she’s got Charlie’s number; and a number of other wonderful character actors like Robert Loggia, John Randolph, and CCH Pounder.
As Prizzi’s Honor draws to a close, it has a feel of inevitability to it, but the ending still stings. Charlie Partanna gets exactly what he deserves for being such a sucker. I think Richard Condon is saying that the same is true of us for tolerating our virtual enslavement as corporate minions.
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