Mambo Italiano

If you’ve had enough of Italian-American celluloid stereotypes, this would-be feelgood offering gives you the chance to move on to some Italian-Canadian ones, and see if you can tell the difference. In Montreal’s Petite Italie neighbourhood, loving parents are waiting for the day when their twentysomething son will finally meet a nice Italian girl and get hitched – then and only then would it be permissible for him to leave the family nest. Angelo (Luke Kirby) has other ideas – since he’s secretly gay, moving in with his childhood buddy Nino (Peter Miller), now a closeted cop, works out pretty well since no one will suspect they’re also lovers.
This being a farcical comedy, the shock news eventually leaks out, leaving the movie to find some sort of resolution between its gesticulating cast of Italo-caricatures and an underlying message of sexual tolerance. Writer-director Gaudreault’s too much of a plodder to make that happen however, and despite effortful attempts at colourful high-spirits, this is an amiable slice of nothing-in-particular, rather undone by its total absence of sexual chemistry between the central same-sex couple.