'Mafia!' By Michael O'Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 24, 1998

Director Jim Abrahams makes a parody of gangster movies in "Mafia!" (Touchstone) Director: Jim Abrahams Cast: Jay Mohr; Christina Applegate; Lloyd Bridges; Olympia Dukakis; Pamela Gidley; Billy Burke Running Time: 1 hour, 27 minutes For slapstick violence, schoolyard profanity and sexual innuendo

The late Lloyd Bridges stars as the doddering don Vincenzo Cortino, on the run from an angry Sicilian gangster whose severed thumb he keeps in his pocket. But forget about the plot. There isn't any. In director Jim Abrahams's patented hit-or-miss approach, it's just one low-brow-but usually pretty funny-gag after the other, in feverish succession. (In fact, I think I missed a good one when I looked away to write this note.)

Of particularly scatological surrealism are the sight gags involving a small boy being inserted into the rectum of a donkey and Olympia Dukakis as Mama Cortino blowing up a family enemy by breaking wind into a candle flame. There are so many jokes that they stretch well into the end credits.

Unfortunately, toward the end, "Mafia!" starts to lose what little focus it ever had. But movies of this sort are never the sharply honed lampoons you might hope for as much as they are scattershot mockeries of popular culture. (Honestly though, haven't "Riverdance," the Macarena and Barney the Dinosaur already been pumped full of lead?) Esther Rolle, Sherman Helmsley and Don Cornelius appear in good-natured cameos as themselves, adding further to the somewhat dated feeling of this effort. If it's possible to be old-fashioned while cracking wise about flatulence and male sexual arousal, then "Mafia!" is as quaint as Sunday afternoon tea with grandma, only considerably more amusing.