Charlie (Mickey Rourke) is a slick restaurant manager who dreams of owning his own restaurant. His petty criminal cousin Paulie (Eric Roberts) is a waiter. The owner discovers Paulie stealing and fires both of them. Paulie has a scheme to break into a safe. He brings in locksmith Barney and a reluctant Charlie. A cop is killed in the heist. They steal $150k. Charlie is besides himself that Paulie kept the fact that the money belongs to mob boss Bed Bug Eddie (Burt Young) from him. Charlie's girlfriend (Daryl Hannah) tells him that she's pregnant.Wow! What a performance! The DVD comes with supposed praises like "Explosively funny." (LA Times) and "high-voltage movie that produces tears of laughter" (NY Daily News). The problem is that the movie doesn't come with jokes. The unintentional hilarity all comes from the ridiculous over-the-top Eric Roberts performance. It is an incredible thing to behold and crazier than Al Pacino's Scarface. It almost comes off as a spoof of a gangster movie. One should see this to believe it. I almost didn't believe it.

I was raised in New York. Those are my credentials and I say we got a winner of a movie on our hands here. Everything presented and discussed is a bulls eye bar none. The dialog, eating habits, dress, attitudes, cops, locations, high buildings, local goombahs, music, sports (stickball), mother of a cop, and on and on. That is why this movie fits like a comfortable glove to anyone watching it. It is so natural and real life. That is the secret. When I was a kid, looking for opportunities never stop and here we have a couple of guys looking for the same although sloppily. That is what draws you in. You know they are going to fail and that could be you. I mean you don't rob a place in your own neighborhood. Even dumb criminals know that. As far as the story and plot go, it is neat and doesn't waste time setting you up and pulling you in. The actors all take their parts and send them back with vigor on the the screen and into your memory quite effectively. Grab something to snack on to turn up the enjoyment meter although its running high and join those that have seen this movie several times over.

The Pope Of Greenwich Village is a film that absolutely I can't decide about. I love it for some of the acting, especially Eric Roberts as this hopelessly stupid schemer. But I'm not sure if the makers of this film intended it to be a comedy or a serious drama. It really falls somewhere in between and doesn't come up for air.I also cannot believe Mickey Rourke's character. He seems intelligent enough, but how he can get involved with this cousin who is not only beyond stupid, but a liar and a con artist to boot?This latest scheme that Roberts has is a real beauty. He's going to steal some money out of an easy to crack safe and bet it on a horse that he has a really good tip on. That's bad enough, but of course he doesn't tell his partners Kenneth McMillan and Rourke that not only does the money belong to the local Mafia head Burt Young. And it's to be used as police payoff money. So we've got crooks and crooked cops looking for the perpetrators.The main reason to see The Pope Of Greenwich Village is Roberts. Because you cannot believe how anyone can lie and cheat and doublecross people and have lived as far as he has. Geraldine Page as the mother of a cop killed accidentally (yes accidentally) during the robbery got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but the film such as it is belongs to Eric Roberts.The film does have some nice location cinematography in Greenwich Village and Little Italy. This is not the Bohemian Village nor is it the Gay Mecca that it is now known for. This is the Greenwich Village that elected Carmine DiSapio, the last great boss of Tammany Hall as its Democratic leader. Little Italy has shrunk considerably, but it's still there.But after you watch it, mesmerized as you are by Roberts, you'll be scratching your head wondering just exactly what did you see?

Mickey Rourke is "The Pope of Greenwich Village" in this 1984 film also starring Eric Roberts, Geraldine Page, Kenneth McMillan, Darryl Hannah and Burt Young. Rourke is Charlie, who, with his cousin Paulie, rob a mobster with the help of a safecracker (McMillan). Both Rourke and Roberts are in fine form against the New York background. Everything about this film is seedy. The detectives all look out of shape and overtired, everybody has smoker's skin or a drinker's red nose. As Charlie, Rourke wants a big score so he can buy a restaurant, but his fatal flaw is listening to his idiotic cousin Paulie, a total loser and a weakling, who gets him involved in the robbery of a vicious mobster where a cop is killed at the scene. The attractive Rourke uses his sweet smile to good advantage and underplays; it's a shame he underwent such severe plastic surgery and took his career off track. Roberts plays Paulie as completely pathetic, so pathetic that at times, he's funny, even when his circumstances aren't.The mob movies were in their heyday when "The Pope of Greenwich Village" was made, so it probably got lost in the shuffle. It's not a big film, but the acting and locations are impressive. Look for Geraldine Page in a small but showy role as the dead cop's mother, a woman who can handle the police better than anyone.