Version of Corky Romano Reviewed: Touchstone Entertainment Widescreen DVD, 2003

ABOUT THE FILM

The Premise: Corky Romano (Chris Kattan) is the black sheep son in a dysfunctional, quirky mafia family. He's not a fan of the family business--he's much more concerned with animals (he's an assistant veterinarian), helping people, and spreading good cheer and hugs (think of a less "flamboyant" version of Richard Simmons). Because of this, after his mother passed away, his father (Peter Falk) and brothers (Peter Berg and Chris Penn) disowned him. However, when the family business is threatened by an informant working with the FBI, they need someone whom they can trust, but who isn't a known link to the family, to pose as an FBI agent and find out what they know and how they know it. Corky is unwillingly recruited for the job.

Facts And Assessments To Help You Decide Whether You Might Like This Film:
This is a fish-out-of-water comedy, and more specifically, would fit into a "Saturday Night Live comedy" genre. The Saturday Night Live comedy genre, with Kattan being the formal link to Saturday Night Live here, usually plays something like a film-length skit from the show, with more expensive production values, and a more formally structured plot. Although a lot of the humor can be sophomoric (which isn't meant as a value judgment--a lot of people, including me, enjoy sophomoric humor), Saturday Night Live comedies often have more sophisticated comedic subtexts, too. Corky Romano is heavier on the sophomoric and slapstick side.

Fans of the genre, and especially Chris Kattan fans, are most likely to enjoy the film. If some of Kattan's work on Saturday Night Live could get on your nerves, you may quickly grow tired of him in the film. If you're primarily interested in Corky Romano because you like other actors in the film, such as Peter Falk, be aware that besides Kattan, most of the other roles are more like "bit parts".

ABOUT THE DISC

Compared to a lot of recent releases, Corky Romano is a bit slim on special features. There are two "extended scenes", each only a few minutes long. One was definitely an alternate take. The other may have just been edited. In my view, both of these were even funnier than the versions that ended up in the final cut--this can be either positive (in that it's quality material as an extra) or a negative (in that it makes you realize that the film could have been even funnier), depending on how you look at it.

If you are interested in the process of filmmaking, the best extra feature for you would be the "All Access" extra, which is about 10 minutes long. Although there is no narration to explain what is going on, you see video footage of the director, cast and crew at work doing multiple takes of one particular scene. This will help you understand the idea of shooting "coverage", and implicitly demonstrate the importance of post-production sound processing, editing, and the strong effect that the addition of a score has on a film. On a positive/negative note again, much of the material that was cut out of this scene in the final version of the film was funnier to me.

Unfortunately, there is no commentary track provided, and this is one of the many discs where the box art lists items such as "Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound", "Widescreen (1.85:1)", and "Spanish and French Subtitles" as "Special Features", in order to make the disc look more substantial. Also, when navigating the menus, one of which is amusingly animated (and again this has the unintended negative effect of making you notice that the other menus aren't animated), they included a special section for a sole trailer for another film, Bubble Boy, as if that were some outstanding special feature.