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 I forgot I had seen this film, The Funeral. How I forgot, I don't know? Maybe I have something against funerals? It is—as is any film by the dour director Abel Ferrara—abrasive, violent, powerful, hard-hitting—not easily forgotten.
It so happened I revisited the film because it was packaged with three other mob movies on a double-sided DVD, itself randomly crystallized in a wire K-Mart bin of Wong Foo type discount movies. Had I not selected it, I wondered, perhaps if the film might have been available to some historian thousands of years from now preserved like an insect in the tar pits of K-Mart.
The Funeral is a great atypical gangster film featuring a solid cast: Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Annabella Sciorra, Isabella Rossellini, Vincent Gallo, Benicio del Toro and Gretchen Mol. The plot is fixed on the funeral of one of three brothers in a family of New York City gangsters circa 1930s. It is a film that deals with the funeral of the youngest brother, Giovanni "Johnny" Tempio (Gallo), in a series of flashbacks. The younger Johnny is a complete moron but a complex one with intellectual yearnings. He has ideas of Communism and worker's equality, but forgets he is in the mob.
 Johnny swallows completely the fire eating message of his local socialist leader. He then twists it somehow and believes that the mob can be an agent for social change, an avatar for the worker. I thought it was great writing when Johnny was talking about how the industrialists owned the cops but the mob worked for the people. That is how he was beginning to see the mafia. His friend said, in a brilliant dosage of reality, said, "We work for whoever pays us." Johnny missed the point.
Ferrara does not do gangster films so much as he leads dark introspective journeys of destructive human nature in all its vainglory. The Funeral is no different. This film gives the term depressing a whole new shade of gray.
Exceedingly well acted, the late Chris Penn steals the show as Casarino "Chez" Tempio. Penn won Best Supporting Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his portrayal of the emotionally unstable, psychologically disturbed Tempio brother—though it should be noted all the brothers are disturbed. Penn damn near crossed the line into being the feature actor of this film. That role is played by Walken as Raimundo "Ray" Tempio, but I would estimate screen time between the two actors does not make it such an easy classification. Toward the end of The Funeral, Walken does become the focus, but for a while... Penn is the man. And man is he fucked up.
 An unforgettable scene involves Chez in a brothel, where he clearly gets the youngest of the whore's draw. His insane emotions are amplified by a bevy of narcotics and booze. The result is a reeling sexual stupor that causes Chez to both chastise the young girl he isolates in a separate room for making a very poor career choice on one hand, while on the other, ultimately finding his own insane reason to exploit her. I want to say the scene I watched was edited on this DVD. I recall it being more graphic (if that is even possible) the first time I saw this film about ten years ago.
In short the crazy Chez offers the girl money if she will simply leave, go home and make a real life for herself. Oh, how caring can Chez be. However, the girl instead asks for more money than he offered. She made it clear the deed would be included. Chez becomes sexually aggressive, gives her the money and as the deed is commenced, explains she has "sold her soul to the devil."
Chris Penn, who passed away the age of 40 in 2006 is a CoolFilmz sleeper legend. I mean, come on, who can forget his portrayal as the unctuous dumpy "Nice Guy Eddie" in Reservoir Dogs? I also liked him in Eastwood's Pale Rider. Chris Penn had a way with playing the asshole part to a tee.
Christopher Walken plays the eldest Tempio brother and he is brilliantly weird as always. My favorite critic Roger Ebert was not overly blown away by Penn's award winning performance as much as he was impressed with the subtleties of Walken's. Ray Tempio is out for revenge but seems the most mild mannered of all the Tempio brothers yet still wrestles with an ideology that is insane. So I will have to say, Walken's part is a bit more complex to portray.
The Funeral is a well put together mosaic of character studies that aim for the dark alley of humanity. It is a fantastically written script. Consider this exchange between Walken and his wife: She admonishes him for the notion that he must carry out revenge for his brother's death. She points out it will not bring his brother back. He says, "The Catholic scholars say we need the grace of God to do what is right... If I do something wrong its because God didn't give me the grace to do something right.... If this world stinks, it's his fault. I am only working with what I've been given...."
She says, "...and the people they find with bullet holes in their head—they are his fault? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
He answers, "I am ashamed of nothing. I didn't make the world."
There is another well-written scene between Ray Tempio's wife (Sciorra) and Helen (Gretchen Mol), who was Gaspare Spoglia (del Toro)'s gal. They basically exchange some well written lines about the hypocrisy of mob life, how their men had never risen up past their illiterate violent lifestyles and that there is nothing romantic about any of it.
Ferrara has his hands around this depressing universe like practically no other director. I won't give away the ending but, man, if you are expecting a happy exit, you are as nuts as Chez.
I might not give it an Ace because it is just too damn depressing. It is nowhere near as glitzy and glamorous as Goodfellas or Casino or not even close to the romantic overtones of the Godfather. But that would't be fair to this flick: spiting a film aptly titled The Funeral for being as depressing as a real one. You know people simply don't like to be depressed. It is anathema to the movie hero. When a movie like this comes along, it is disturbing. This film is a journey into the pathology of the hopeless and those that live without God's grace to borrow a phrase from Ray Tempio. It's gets Ace. Now, will someone please pass me a happy pill.
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