Primo & Secondo, two immigrant brothers, pin their hopes on a banquet honoring a famous musician to save their struggling restaurant.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-NOV-2007
Media Type: DVDCritics tripped all over their big feet to praise Big Night, and in doing so performed a grave disservice to this fine little film. They fooled audiences into believing it was a “super movie” instead of a home movie buoyed by friends and family. Consequently, many viewers were disappointed. Big Night is an intimate look at the immigrant struggle to attain the American Dream, set in New Jersey in the 1950s. Its disproportionate success gave co-directors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott, who also star in the picture, the green light to follow up with a smug, unsuccessful second venture called The Imposters. Tucci wrote Big Night with his cousin Joseph Tropiano, and they based the story on the experience of growing up in a large, proud Italian family. The brothers in Big Night–chef Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and businessman Secondo (Tucci)–have come to New Jersey to open a bistro named The Paradise that serves the finest in traditional, authentic Italian cuisine. Their every move is foiled by rival restaurant Pascal’s, which serves mile-high servings of spaghetti and meatballs and flasks of bad Chianti at exorbitant prices. Primo is disgusted by the fact that Americans want cheap pasta instead of risotto, so Secondo hatches a plan to boost business: rumor has it bandleader Louis Prima is travelling through and will dine at The Paradise that very night. Secondo gambles to bring the finest dinner ever cooked–at the risk of losing his shirt and being reduced to exile to the old country with his tail between his legs. Big Night is a film that will easily invite comparisons to other “food” fare like Babette’s Feast and Eat Drink Man Woman but, though Tucci insists his story is “about the struggle between art and commerce and the risk of staying true to yourself,” the media refused to let it stay a small, comparative work. The movie, and the buzz around it, became a parable for the essence of the film itself: art vs. commerce. –Paula Nechak
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March 5, 2010
#1
Boring is the best thing I can say about this bomber. I am perplexed by the raves this movie has received. I had to end it before it was 1/2 way over and then went swiftly to sleep. Has anyone seen Rodger & Me? Same idea. Try “Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring” if you want a truly great movie.
March 5, 2010
#2
if you really want to enjoy any movie – even a mediocre one – then rent Big Night. it will make anything look good.
March 5, 2010
#3
Billed as thought provolking, the only thoughts it provoked for me were: why did anyone waste their efforts making it? and what in the world compelled me to buy it?
This was such a tedious “exploration of the immigrant struggle” that I had to “struggle” to stay awake.
March 5, 2010
#4
Somebody with undue influence over my husband told him this is a really excellent “little art film”, so he rented it. Set in the 1950s, it’s a slow-paced tale about two brothers from Italy who must face the demise of their restaurant. The food looks good, and there are one or two moments that would have been touching if I’d actually cared about the characters. I’m glad we didn’t pay to see this in a theater, as it was much easier to take lying down.
March 5, 2010
#5
I’ve seen BIG NIGHT described as “one of the great food movies”. Let me clarify something here. The adjective “great” modifies “food”, but not “movies”.
Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci) are Italian immigrant brothers who’ve opened the Paradise restaurant in an unidentified surfside town on the Eastern seaboard sometime in the 1950s. The elder Primo is a superlative chef, and both he and Secondo know it. But, Primo cooks to his desires and not the customers’. So, two years into the venture, the brothers are almost broke, the bank is about to repossess, and Secondo, the one with the business sense, is driven to despairing distraction.
Down the street is the competing Italian restaurant owned by Pascal (Ian Holm). While he admires Primo’s talent, Pascal gives his patrons what they want, so his eatery is enormously successful. To help the boys out, Pascal arranges to have his friend, the Italian-American singer Louis Prima, come to the Paradise with his band for dinner. Secondo spends virtually the last of their savings preparing for the BIG NIGHT with the expectation that the event and its attendant publicity will yank them back from the brink of insolvency. In the meantime, he avoids emotional commitment to his girlfriend Phyllis (Minnie Driver) while having an affair with Gabriella (Isabella Rossellini), Pascal’s mistress. After all, what are pals for?
The best bits of this film are the too infrequent cooking sequences. But the best ends there. BIG NIGHT doesn’t know whether to be a drama or comedy, and succeeds at neither. The dialogue is flat and uninspired throughout, and the plot goes nowhere of interest. My wife, perhaps a dollop more impressed than I was, called the film a “character study”. But no persona in this otherwise dull movie is engaging, and, indeed, I found Pascal’s ebullient crassness positively annoying. About the only other good thing I can say about BIG NIGHT is that it uses as props some well-preserved, large tail-finned, period Cadillacs that will perhaps stimulate vintage car buffs.
Better films to rent that revolve around food preparation are MOSTLY MARTHA (2001) and EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN (1994). These, at least, portray characters to care about.