Pointless. Abysmal in every respect in my view. Looking at the cast I was really excited to see this film. What I saw was a story so pointless, acting so intense yet superficial, disjointed continuity, extremely poor, choppy editing, over-crowded effects, pointless and gratuitous violence. A truck filled with radios explodes? From what? This film assassinates the character of Italians. While Chris Penn has center stage, his character in now way had the depth of soul to be the character he depicted with excessive boredom. Aside from "Artificial Intelligence" which I view as the worst film ever, this one almost ties it. The director and the editors as well failed. Darkness for the sake of darkness,murder for film dollars. Just a terrible film.

Not often I say at the end of a movie "what a waste of time". My time is not precious. I have a wealth of time. So actually it doesn't really matter what I do with it. At night I like to watch films sitting on my sofa next to my lovely wife who crumbles into my arms and sleeps most of the time. Usually we see good and very good films this way. But this time it was different. I give most films a chance. When nothing really special happens or when something really strange happens, I'm curious and want to see what the maker of the film is trying to say. No difference on that part, looking at this movie.I have one positive thing to say about this film: great acting.For the rest, it is a boring film. I hated the little brother who was dead. I couldn't stand his moron face. He didn't fit in the 'family' to my opinion. The two other brothers, Walken and Penn, they were great!The entire film I was waiting for something to really happen. But nothing happened. Only very boring intros and some stupid dialogs that have no meaning and in the understanding of the film have no meaning at all. When you've seen the film, you could forget like 60% of the dialogs and still understand it. I liked what they did with Del Torro. And after that, the actual killer: just didn't fit in the rest of the scenario of this Johnny, nor did it fit in the entire film. The killer had nothing to do with the business, the communist thing. Then why these boring dialogs?The end of the movie did it. I got a bad mood over it. This is what made me conclude: a waste of time. All dead. ...Come on!

I'm a little unhappy that it took me so long to hear of this movie. It is truly a movie drama. Some people when they hear about this probably relate it to the Godfather before even seeing it, and they are wrong for doing this. It is dark and gritty which makes it overall realistic. There is a very dark feel to the entire thing and there is basically no comedy, but the character development and emotion make up for it. The performances in this movie are also very good and add to the gritty atmosphere. Christopher Walken gives an unusually serious performance as the head brother of the family. I did not think that he could pull of such a part due to his naturally funny demeanor, but he did, and he did it very well. I also feel that Benicio Del Toro, as always, did a very good part in his role. I did not think that he could do the role of a gangster either, but he was extremely realistic and made the viewer hate him and feel bad for him at the same time. But, I think of all the people in this movie, Chris Penn stole this movie acting wise. To me, he was utterly spectacular in his part as the hot head brother out for revenge. The movie does get slow at some points and does seem choppy, but all in all this is a very good film and if you like gangster dramas and character development, it's for you.

The Funeral is a dark and gritty story that plumbs the characters in a New York band of criminal brothers. It doesn't have the romantic sweep of a Godfather movie, nor the rawness of Scarface. But it does have great acting: the cold, sinister aloofness of the leader-brother(Christopher Walken); the raging insanity of the bartender-brother(Chris Penn); and, the cockiness of the younger communist-influenced brother. Annabella Scioria as the wife with a tortured psyche who "had two years of college", and Bennissio del Toro, as the suave and slick rival mobster round out the terrific cast.But the movie does have some problems. The abrupt, "surprise" ending is consistent with the arcs in the movie, and is supported by trends in the characters' developments, but seems unsatisfying. Also, long philosophical conversations between killer and victims seems unrealistic. While these conversations(and flashback sequences) give insight into characters, it just doesn't seem likely.Watch this movie if you are a fan of crime/Mafia films, and you can enjoy a thoughtful introspection of characters and relationships between characters. Don't watch it if you want to see a "thrill-a-minute", or explosions every other scene.