Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Chris Penn, Isabella Rossellini
Lumberingly pretentious about familial duty and misguided macho codes of conduct, The Funeral follows the fates of the three Tempio brothers, gangsters in New York City in the mid-1930s. Walken plays the eldest, the brains of the operation; Penn is the middle brother, a jittery sort; and Vincent Gallo portrays the youngest, a questing soul not really suited to the family business. When Gallo is gunned down, The Funeral tells, in flashbacks, how he came to his sorry end and what his siblings plan to do about it. In between, we get nasty scenes—Funeral is, after all, directed by cult fave Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant)—of bloody beatings, ax-play and gunfire. Walken is as creepy as ever here, but it suits his character, while Sciorra scores as his smart, fed-up wife. The real grabber, though, is Benicio Del Toro (The Usual Suspects), who, as a rival gangster, shows sufficient looks and swagger to suggest he just might be Brad Pitt's evil twin. (R)
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