Spike of Bensonhurst

R

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1 hr. 41 min.

Comedy

List

50%

6 Reviews

Tomatometer

61%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

A boxer (Sasha Mitchell) courts a mob boss's (Ernest Borgnine) daughter and is banished to the barrio.

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Stron

One of the greatest movies about Bensonhurst and how the mob has their hands in everything. It's hilarious, and has one of the best soundtracks of the 80s, especially if you're Italian.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

04/07/24

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Audience Member

God, I love Paul Morrissey. This is probably his most seemingly normal film on the surface. It's got all the trademarks of a typical eighties flick, but the subversive morality and underlying humor of this is anything but normal. If you really break it down, this is a flick about a racist boxer who gets two girls pregnant, tries to marry the rich one, but ends up settling for the other one for no other reason than that it got too hard to deal with the rich girl's family. This is pretty much Morrissey parodying the sorts of eighties films John Hughes was producing at the time and their sort of "moral of the story" endings. It's spot on and absolutely brilliant. As for the cast, Ernest Borgnine is great as the Bensonhurst mob boss, and Sasha Mitchell is hilarious and believable as Spike. Morrissey regular Geraldine Smith is fantastically irreverent as well as Spike's temporarily lesbian mother. Oh...And Talisa Soto (Spike's second best) is absolutely gorgeous.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

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Audience Member

This is Paul Morrissey's best. A profane, racially conscious, cruel yet sympathetic tribute to family and community. A brilliant inversion of individualistic triumphs like Rocky and Saturday Night Fever just as Paul Morrissey's Heat subverts Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood's violence as cathartsis. Ernest Borgnine is an inspiration as the flawed powerful patriarch. The ending is among the most emotionally moving I've seen and unexpectedly so given that 95% of of the film consists of gross charactures and crass jokes . Highly recommended

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

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Audience Member

This was a terrific movie for a laugh!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

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Paul Morrissey

Director

Sasha Mitchell

Spike Fumo

Ernest Borgnine

Baldo Cacetti

Anne De Salvo

Sylvia Cacetti

Sylvia Miles

Congresswoman

Geraldine Smith

Helen Fumo

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

[Spike of Bensonhurst] is not the best comedy ever made but has energy and local color and a charismatic lead performance by Sasha Mitchell as Spike.

Rated: 3/4

Jan 1, 2000

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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

In a witless way goofs on Italian gangsters.

Rated: C+

Oct 12, 2012

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Michael Szymanski

Zap2it.com

Rated: 3/5

Sep 21, 2005

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 3/5

Aug 8, 2005

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Philip Martin

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Rated: 2/5

Jan 31, 2003

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Jeffrey Westhoff

Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

Rated: 2/5

Jul 26, 2002

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Synopsis

A boxer (Sasha Mitchell) courts a mob boss's (Ernest Borgnine) daughter and is banished to the barrio.

Director: Paul Morrissey
Executive Producer: Sam Grogg
Screenwriter: Paul Morrissey
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: English
Box Office (Gross USA): $287.0K