SnoopyStyle 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.

leplatypus As a fan, i am at the hands of my stars and their filmography. Here, the star is Darryl but her movie is forgettable.The fault comes from the two lead actors that irritates me with their big, loud (and empty) attitudes: Rourke and Roberts. Roberts as a fag desperates me and Rourke macho spirit makes me throw away. Fortunately, all the other but characters are rather interesting because they show all a personal trait, maybe due to the fact that the author himself wrote the screenplay.Sure, Darryl as a dancer and filming locations in the New York of 1984 are great but they aren't enough to win against the terrible duo.

bkoganbing 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?

JasparLamarCrabb SPOILER ALERT! Aside from COOL HAND Luke, this is the best film Stuart Rosenberg ever directed. Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts are a couple of losers with big dreams (Rourke wants to open his own restaurant) who run afoul of both the mob and the law after committing a robbery in which crooked cop is accidentally killed. Rosenberg handles his actors very well with Rourke giving a particularly exceptional performance. His scenes with not only Roberts, but Daryl Hannah are terrific. Roberts, on the other hand, overacts a lot...taking his wacko role in STAR 80 and acting even creepier. He's not helped at all by the creepy perm he dons. You really can't ask for a better supporting cast: Kenneth MacMillan, Burt Young, and, best of all, Geraldine Page as the quintessential tough-as-nails, Irish/American mother. Her brief scenes are real showstoppers. She justly deserved her Oscar nomination!