With “Cocaine Bear” notching another win in Universal’s recent run of “silly cinema” hits alongside “Violent Night” and “M3gan,” Bleecker Street is offering up its own escapist high concept pitch. “Mafia Mamma” stars Toni Collette as an American who inherits her grandfather’s business in Italy only to discover that the family business is the mafia.
With help from the firm’s consigliere (Monica Bellucci), she is placed in the position of having to acclimate to her new role as the head of a crime family while avoiding war with a rival family. This trailer — which you can see below — focuses on its protagonist and fish-out-of-water scenario, including Collette admitting she’s never seen “The Godfather” (“Look, it’s really hard to find three-and-a-half hours!”) and giving momentary thought to using her newfound crime powers to whack her cheating husband.
The film is being sold as a female escapist fantasy concerning an underappreciated woman discovering she is “the special” and tapping into unrealized strength to become the leader her family needs her to be, while also hooking up along the way. Based on a story by Amanda Sthers, who serves as a producer alongside Collette and Christopher Simon, “Mafia Mamma” is penned by Michael J. Feldman and Debbie Jhoon.
Whether it’s a matter of getting the work she’s been offered or attempting to create a varied portfolio, director Catherine Hardwick’s pre-”Twilight” (“Thirteen,” “Lords of Dogtown” and “The Nativity Story”) and post-“Twilight (“Red Riding Hood,” “Plush, “Miss You Already,” “Miss Bala”) directorial filmography is on par with David Gordon Green and Ang Lee in terms of genre-jumping randomness.
Without getting into the studio politics of Hardwicke launching a mega-bucks YA, teen girl-targeted franchise and then getting tossed off the sequels in favor of male directors, Bleecker Street is hoping “Mafia Mamma” will benefit from the slight uptick in audiences showing up for “just a fun movie with recognizable names and a high concept” in theaters. The R-rated crime comedy opens theatrically on April 14.
Watch the trailer for “Mafia Mamma” above.