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Spike of Bensonhurst

R 1988 1h 41m Comedy List
50% Tomatometer 6 Reviews 62% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
A boxer (Sasha Mitchell) courts a mob boss's (Ernest Borgnine) daughter and is banished to the barrio.

Critics Reviews

View All (6) Critics Reviews
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 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews In a witless way goofs on Italian gangsters. Rated: C+ Oct 12, 2012 Full Review Michael Szymanski Zap2it.com Rated: 3/5 Sep 21, 2005 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 3/5 Aug 8, 2005 Full Review Philip Martin Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Rated: 2/5 Jan 31, 2003 Full Review Jeffrey Westhoff Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) Rated: 2/5 Jul 26, 2002 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (5) audience reviews
Michael R It's kind of silly but enjoyable. I had to give it four stars being from Bensonhurst myself. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 07/04/24 Full Review 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 Full Review 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 Full Review 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 Full Review Audience Member This was a terrific movie for a laugh! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Spike of Bensonhurst

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A boxer (Sasha Mitchell) courts a mob boss's (Ernest Borgnine) daughter and is banished to the barrio.
Director
Paul Morrissey
Producer
Nelson Lyon, Mark Silverman, David Weisman
Screenwriter
Paul Morrissey
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Box Office (Gross USA)
$287.0K
Runtime
1h 41m