Mac is a movie to prize if you are of Italian-American heritage, grew up or live near Italians, or want to look beyond the mobster cliché that surrounds them. It portrays Italians far more realistically than "The Godfather" -- a classic, but only concerned with a tiny fraction of Italian-American life -- as superior and extraordinarily hard- working artists, craftsmen, builders and family men, naive with money, awkward at sex, unprejudiced, and bewildered by women. It is funny, wistfully sad, compelling, sweet and powerfully LOUD. It is a treat of a movie, one of a string of small independent films to emerge out of the so-called "video auteur" age of the early 1990s. Its director and star, John Turturro, based the movie largely upon is dad and his own early years, and the film rings true with that kind of authenticity.

Enjoyed this entire film, having grown up in Queens, N.Y.it brought back great memories of how hard it was for the Italian people to work at their skills as builders. John Turturro, and Nicholas Turturro gave excellent performances and Ellen Barkin had a small supporting role as a writer who charmed the Italian young men. This was a down to earth picture of Italian people and their family life to struggle in the building industry in Queens, N.Y. This is definitely a film classic.

john turturro plays his dad. hes really really into construction, carpentry, building houses. he quits the job for his jerk off boss and he and his brothers start their own business. then he starts pushing his brothers around kind of like his old boss did. this movie is cool the way it shows these things. it also shows a big part of the mans life it sort of feels like a trip or something 'i can remember way back before they were married, and when they met' when i see him and his wife together in their later years. theres a couple things i dont get in the movie like whats ellen barkin, what happens to her, what happens to his mom who is always screaming off-camera, did his wife really sell the houses? some people say this is all about some message about how the main guy is perfect, but i aint convinced. the last shot has him dragging his kid around by the hand like he were a doll. he is so obsesssed he drives his brothers nuts and they quit working for him. the character has got spirit and hes got problems. its a very interesting picture of the main character.

Boy, this is bad. It's as if Turturro, playing method as Barton Fink, had rapped out his own screenplay about "the common man" and somehow saw it get before the cameras. The opening few minutes are fine, but then goes downhill and doesn't recover. There's a vaguely sickening feel that Turturro feels this is some sort of Important Statement, as if he believed the fictional studio's hype and cast himself as an auteur, ready to deliver that Barton Fink feeling. An overlong, self-important mess.