The Birthday Cake

Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is a major reference point for this misjudged Mob flick from director Jimmy Giannopoulos, which feels very amateurish by comparison. It sees Shiloh Fernandez's good-natured Gio getting repeatedly waylaid as he heads to a party hosted by his gangster uncle, Angelo (Val Kilmer). Gio is carrying a cake baked by his embittered mother (Lorraine Bracco) in memory of his murdered father. The essential premise is a good one but inept execution scuppers it at nearly every turn, with the intrusive and unpleasant score the worst offender, while camerawork that tries to bring a more freewheeling indie edge to the gangster film merely cheapens things. If his character is improbably wide-eyed for this bloodthirsty world, Fernandez (who also co-writes with Giannopoulos and Diomedes Raul Bermudez) is an affable-enough lead, and a mischievous little cameo from Luis Guzman is a high point. But the eye-catching cast, which also includes William Fichtner, Emory Cohen, Penn Badgley and Aldis Hodge, are universally underused. Ewan McGregor appears fleetingly as a priest and provides the lacklustre, exposition-heavy narration, while Kilmer - who underwent a tracheotomy during a battle with throat cancer - is sadly incomprehensible here, rendering his interactions somewhat baffling.