Big Night (1996)

★ 7.0 1h 49m 269 votes IMDb
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Primo and Secondo, two immigrant brothers, pin their hopes on a banquet honoring Louis Prima to save their struggling restaurant.

Big Night

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Cast

Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver as Phyllis Age 56 · Finsbury Park, London, England, UK Amelia Fiona Jessica "Minnie" Driver (born January 31, 1970) is an English actress and singer. She's best known for her roles as Skylar in Good Will Hunting, Maya DiMeo on the sitcom Speechless, Dahli...
Ian Holm
Ian Holm as Pascal Died 2020 · Goodmayes, Essex, England, UK Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert CBE (September 12, 1931 – June 19, 2020) was an English actor. After beginning his career on the British stage as a leading member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a s...
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini as Gabriella Age 73 · Rome, Lazio, Italy Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born June 18, 1952) is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, a...
Tony Shalhoub
Tony Shalhoub as Primo Age 72 · Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA Tony Shalhoub is an American actor. His television work includes the role of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and Adrian Monk on Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work on Monk.
Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci as Secondo Age 65 · Peekskill, New York, USA Stanley Tucci Jr. (born November 11, 1960) is an American actor. Known as a character actor, he has played a wide variety of roles ranging from menacing to sophisticated.
Caroline Aaron
Caroline Aaron as Woman in Restaurant Age 73 · Richmond, Virginia, USA Caroline Aaron (born August 7, 1952) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as acid-tongued talk show host Mary Pat Lee on Wings. Description above from the Wikipedia article Caroline...

Audience Reviews

Filipe Manuel Neto 7/10 Jan 16, 2024
**A forgotten film about naive, deeply believable and human people.**

There are certain films where everything depends on the actors' performance, and this is one of them. The dialogues are truly rich, the development of the characters and the ways they interact is highly valued, the plot is reduced to the simplest it can be and almost everything happens in the limited space of the Italian restaurant. It looks like a play, and that even leads me to believe that the film could be an adaptation of a play.

Such simplicity and minimalism obviously mean that there was no significant financial investment on the production side. Cheap to make, with touches of indie cinema and quality personnel in the cast and crew, the film meets the necessary goals to entertain us pleasantly for some time, but it will never be unforgettable for anyone. In fact, it is quite forgotten nowadays, which I completely understand.

Technically, the film does everything without mistakes, but it doesn't take any risks: the cinematography doesn't bring anything new or bold moves, rather the regular average that is presented without a single error. In common, the soundtrack is perfectly forgettable and the scenarios, although good and perfectly credible, do not have any particular interest. Even the restaurant is banal, an average establishment without any kind of interest, where you go for the quality of the food and not exactly for the atmosphere.

The plot is very simple and works excellently: two brothers, Italian immigrants, have a restaurant that is about to close because they didn't know how to manage it and gain customers; This leads them to listen to the advice of the owner of a competing restaurant and invite singer Louis Prima to dinner in the hope of boosting the business. The brothers are, each in their own way, perfectly naive! If one is unable to understand that in a business like that, the customer is in charge and not the cook, the other decides to trust the advice of someone who had every reason to harm them. This makes them human, believable, and it is impossible not to suffer for them. The naivety is not just theirs: the character of Minnie Driver is also deeply naive in her own way, in the way she becomes romantically involved and allows herself to be deceived.

Stanley Tucci, intelligently, collaborated directly in writing the script and the result was one of the best works of his career, with the actor in a role that he tailored to his own abilities and qualities, without prejudice to his colleagues, to whom he gives the necessary space to showcase their talent. Thus, Tony Shalhoub also makes the film an authentic calling card, proving his qualities as an actor. In a more reserved position, we must also highlight the collaboration of Minnie Driver and Ian Holm, and also the special participation of Isabella Rossellini, who brightens the film with her occasional but very committed collaboration.

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