Our Rating: 3.50
The latest in a long line of sitcoms masquerading as indie comedies is actually one of the better ones to come down the pike since the fondly recalled “Kiss Me, Guido.” Like a sly takeoff on Michael Ovitz’s infamous “gay Mafia” comment, “Friends and Family” shows a pair of male lovers trying desperately to hide their dirty little secret — not their homosexuality, which is well known to just about all their loved ones, but their day job as soldiers for a Sicilian crime family. It’s a wicked empowerment fantasy, with gay stereotypes simultaneously lampooned and posited as a behavioral ideal. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a bunch of straight goombas taking a crash course in swish history, the better to pose as employees of a catering company. (Though one suspects the joke worked better in the pre-“Queer Eye” days of last June, when the film played here as part of the first Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.) Devotees of second-tier showbiz will find plenty to hoot about in the supporting cast, which includes Tony Lo Bianco, Tovah Feldshuh and Anna Maria Alberghetti.
This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2003.