Gabby Saulsbery
This is the best movie I've ever seen.I arrived at the Spectrum in Albany, NY expecting to sit through a snooze fest of family values that I didn't want or need to learn. Hah, but guess what? I, a 14 year old girl with a ton of attention issues, fell in love with this movie. It nearly made me cry...and I don't do that.I have yet to meet a single person who's disliked this movie. It was interesting and inspiring in so many different aspects. Kudos to everyone who contributed into making this amazing film.Plus you know that Trevor Morgan kid? He's pretty cute ;).
Rich Dunbeck
Here's a movie that couldn't find major distribution, and for a good reason. "Uncle Nino" is so bland, unoriginal, cliché, stereotypical, and in-your-face wholesome that I almost forgot I was watching a movie and not a live action episode of Davie and Goliath with an Itailan kook in place of the dog, and Joe Mantegna in place of the lobotomized dweeb kid."Uncle Nino" follows the conventional 'family discord' plot: Mom and Dad (Mantegna and Anne Archer) are too busy with work to raise the kids. The kids, therefore, are rebels. Fourteen-year-old Bobby (Trevor Morgan) TP's houses with the members of his band, called "Carp" for one of the most ridiculous reasons I've ever heard, and together they commandeer Bobby's garage. This is, of course, to the chagrin of Bobby's parents. Twelve-year-old sis Gina (Gina Mantegna. Ah...nepotism) wants a puppy, stays at her friend's house all day, and watches Animal Planet all night. Yes, in the world of "Uncle Nino", watching Animal Planet is a sign of rebellion.Then the kooky Italian Uncle shows up, and fixes everything. How? Apparently foreigners are magic. Or at least they have a never-ending supply of money to provide pets, garden make-overs, and anything else necessary to an ailing family. Nino joins Bobby's band and makes them sound good; he gives Gina a puppy and warms mom's heart; he plants a garden and reminds dad of his childhood. If you think I have in any way ruined this film for you, then you need to get help. If you can't see the ending coming from the first frame of the film, you are severely, cripplingly retarded."Uncle Nino" makes sure to throw in some lessons about fate, mortality, and every other subject that it's writers obviously don't know jack about. They tried to give us a dramatic moment when Nino visits his brother's grave for the very first time. Nino was in prison when his brother died, and after that he waited thirty-six more years to come. Why? Let's turn to resident fatalist Joe Mantegna for an answer: "Maybe you weren't supposed to come to America when he died, so that you could come now. I know that without you here, I'd never appreciate the best things in my life." Oh shut up.The real answer why he didn't come is this: he messed up. And then, when he was free from prison, he just didn't care enough to come, and forgot. Then, thirty-six years later, he remembered that he didn't want to rot in hades for eternity, and he came to try and get a good word in with his apparently saintly deceased brother.Okay, so maybe I'm being too cynical, but the movie does little to make me think otherwise. I wanted to like "Uncle Nino", really I did. The uncle character is funny at times, and probably deserved to be in a better film than this. His earliest scenes, wandering through an airport for the first time in his life, are sweet and comical. But as soon as the American family shows up, the sweetness hits an overload level and the comedy all but dies.I was rather amazed to find that this isn't director Robert Shallcross' first film. "Uncle Nino" is so sloppily handled and so full of cliché soft-focus shots that I thought I was hopped up on morphine and drifting in and out of consciousness. I had to blink my eyes a few times before I realized that it was supposed to look so fuzzy in those scenes. Good grief.I don't think I need to get into how atrocious the screenplay is. I've already said enough there.The acting is less than TV quality, except for Pierrino Mascarino, who makes Nino as charming as he possibly can. Alas, he can't save this film. Joe Mantegna, in my mind, lives in the shadow of his Fat Tony character from the Simpsons. I can't help but see Tony on screen in place of Mantegna. Maybe if Joe did something to, you know, surpass Fat Tony he might have something. The rest of the cast is just...I'm not even going to dignify it with a comment."Uncle Nino" is a TV movie of the week blown up onto a big screen. Try as it might to be special or different, it is neither. It's just like any other sitcom family movie. I'll give it credit, though, it gave me a few smiles in Nino's early scenes. If only it had been like that all the way through. If only Nino had gotten a better script. If only, if only...
jtripper
The votes on this film are so out of line that they have to have been friends of the director or producer. The story line is passable and the actors are okay, but to get the kind of votes registered here suggests that any comment above a 7 should be totally disregarded. The Godfather wouldn't get the number of perfect scores on a percentage basis that this film did. I felt cheated after I went to see the film based in part on the high ratings and comments on the IMDb poll. The average score now is far lower than it was a few weeks ago, thank goodness; but I have a basic resentment that translates to this film--which is too bad because I really respect Mantegna's work. Avoid this one and go see his next film. I'm sure he didn't vote! And to think, I live in Glenview near where they actually filmed this. I wish it were better as a film; but most of all, I wish that someone didn't think they had to mislead those who use IMDb as a guide in selecting their films to watch.
llcaruso2002
I just went to see Uncle Nino, hearing that the star, who lives in Illinois, was a neighbor of a friend. The feature is set in Glenview, IL, where it is sunny every day and never rains(!). Anyone who lives in Illinois knows what I am talking about. The film is so flat and trite that I was predicting the lines before they came out of the actors mouths'. Why do American films have to hit you over the head with their message? I suppose if you had elementary school kids, you could take them. Just don't expect to be entertained. Also, the number of positive ratings shown here are all written by people coming from one town in Michigan. My theater certainly wasn't packed. A handful of old people went along with me and my girlfriend. Maybe some others should post their true thoughts about the caliber of this movie.
