While Paradise Alley is unmistakably a major ego trip for Sylvester
Stallone—he wrote, directed, and stars in the picture, and he even (over)sings
the theme song—his onscreen presence is more muted than one
might expect, given the circumstances. A cornball ensemble piece about three
Italian-American brothers living in Hell’s Kitchen circa the late ’40s, the
film as much a showcase for costars Armand Assante and Lee Canalito as it is
for Stallone. In fact, Canalito gets the showiest part because he spends much
of the movie in a wrestling ring, playing the same sort of undereducated underdog
that Stallone did in Rocky (1976) and
its endless sequels. Yet if Stallone demonstrated restraint by ensuring that Paradise Alley wasn’t entirely about his
character, that’s the only restraint
he demonstrated—in every other regard, Paradise
Alley is florid, overwrought, and schmaltzy.
Our hero, Cosmo Carboni
(Stallone), is a street hustler who anachronistically wears long hair and an
earring while he pulls one scheme after another because he doesn’t want to
work for a living. His brother Victor (Canalito) is a gentle giant who hauls
ice up apartment-building stairs for a living—which means that, of course, we get an epic, sweaty
scene of Victor lugging ice, only to have it fall down and shatter (in slow
motion). Their other sibling, Lenny (Assante), is a haunted war veteran with a
limp who works as an undertaker. Because, you see, he’s dead inside. Subtlety, thy name is not Stallone. As the turgid
narrative unfolds, Cosmo courts Lenny’s ex, dancehall girl Annie
(Anne Archer), and Cosmo gets into hassles with local mobster Stitch (Kevin
Conway, giving the film’s most cartoonish performance). Eventually—which is to
say, halfway through the movie, once Stallone remembers to generate a
plot—Cosmo asks Victor to become a wrestler so the family can get rich.
Inexplicably, this decision transforms Lenny into an avaricious prick, allowing
Stallone to twist the story so his character can grow a conscience.
After
several diverting but pointless sequences—Lenny decides he wants Annie back,
Cosmo bonds with a broken-down wrestler (Frank McRae), and so on—the movie
climaxes in an interminable wrestling match that is set, for no reason except
that Stallone wanted a visual flourish, during a rainstorm. Cue repetitive
shots of Canalito and his sparring partner flipping each other into puddles for
maximum slow-mo splashing! The great cinematographer László Kovács shoots the
hell out of Stallone’s absurd scenes, making the movie look better than it
deserves, and the acting is so flamboyant that many scenes have energy.
However, Paradise Alley is both clichéd and confusing—it’s as if Stallone couldn’t
decide which old movies he wanted to pillage, so he copped something from all
of them. Combined with the excessive storytelling style, the haphazard cribbing from vintage cinema turns Paradise Alley into an unappealing jumble.
Paradise Alley: LAME
