Sugartime

Passable if routine biopic (for TV) about one-time Chicago Mafia king, Sam Giancana, the original Teflon Don, against whom nothing would stick. But this is less a gangster film than a love story about Giancana's long-time affair with minister's daughter and singing sister Phyllis McGuire (Parker). It's hard to make someone like Giancana loveable, especially when his lavish courting technique is intercut with images of associates being clubbed to death with baseball bats. Giancana's more fascinating links through lust with the Kennedys are hardly explored, and while Turturro is always watchable as the Worm Giancana, one is hardly moved at the conclusion, which posits that the Mob had him killed because he wouldn't give up the excessively popular entertainer.