Dinner Rush **** (2000, Danny Aiello, Edoardo Ballerini, Sandra Bernhard, John Corbett, Mike McGlone, Vivian Wu, Summer Phoenix) – Classic Movie Review 4237

Take your places, please, for this delicious, subtle banquet of a meal. The posh venue is Italian restaurant proprietor and bookmaker Louis Cropa (Danny Aiello)’s New York Italian diner. It’s a big night and the food is at its best thanks to Aiello’s top chef son, Udo (Edoardo Ballerini).

Gangsters who want to take over Aiello’s bookie racket turn up, along with a detective chief Detective Drury (Walt MacPherson) and his wife, a restaurant critic called Jennifer Freely (Sandra Bernhard), a snobby art critic and a Wall Street broker, Ken Roloff (John Corbett).

A lot of great ingredients are on the boil at Danny’s diner in producer-director Bob Giraldi’s exquisitely cooked 2000 entertainment, with a dream topping of a spot-on surprise ending.

A lot of great ingredients are on the boil at Danny’s diner in this exquisitely cooked entertainment with a dream topping of a spot-on surprise ending. The casting is perfect, the yarn super and the eatery is so tastily re-created you can just smell the pasta. It is a rich and involving visual and emotional experience with ideal performances all round and must count as the definitive Aiello movie.

The theme is the old adage ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’, so you’ll know what to expect. It is nicely written by Rick Shaughnessy and Brian S Kalata.

Also in the cast are Mike McGlone, Vivian Wu, Summer Phoenix, Kirk Acevedo, Jamie Harris, Mark Margolis, Alex Corrado, Frank Bongirono, Sophie Comet, Tessa Ghylin and Andre DeLeon.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4237

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