Ain't nothing divides the good folk who write a review for IMDb like a good film. And the better the film, the more extreme their views are. The Funeral is described by some who, like me, enjoy adding their two ha'porth worth to the User Review pages as 'a waste of time', 'pointless' and 'abysmal'. Don't believe a word of it. Abel Ferrara might not have the technical skills of Spielberg or his fellow New York director Scorsese, but what he does almost peerlessly is to get brilliant performances from his players who obviously relish the screenplays he and his scriptwriter conjure up for them. There is something almost magical about the films this guy comes up with, and The Funeral is a sparkling example. Set in Depression-era America, it tells a simple tale of death and revenge. But there is so much more to it than that. It is not an 'action film', which some believe Mafia drama should be, but a superb character study in the lives of three brothers. One of them is bright, though ruthless, one insane and ruthless, and the third subscribes to Communist ideas but is equally ruthless. None is nice. Their wives suffer badly. But the 'story' is only the half of it. What is outstanding is how Ferrara builds a world out of nothing. This is low-budget stuff - the sound quality is at times a little dicky - but what that tells you is that you don't need big bucks to make great films. In fact, considering some of the dreck which is churned out on multi-million dollar budgets, there might even be a rule that the bigger the budget, the more likely the film will be a clunker. The Funeral is in the same stable of The Conversation: it misses popular acclaim by a country mile but that is because your average flick viewer wouldn't know class from an empty tub of popcorn. The Funeral is the real deal if you like films. But don't take my word for how good it is, watch it and see for yourself.

Great, and a unusual mafia/gangster movie. Full of excellent actors, like Christopher Walken, Vicent Gallo, Anabella Sciorra, Isabella Rossellini and the phenomenal Chris Penn, with a monstrous performance which make him win "Best Actor" Venice great prize. Once again this film is about limits and the madness of the human mind, the character Chez (Chris Penn), it an ambiguous, and unbalanced persona, that it explode in fury and anger, crying all the time, in total despair. Once more, Abel Ferrara shows us an unexpected and brutal film climax. A must see, for all Ferrara's fans. If you like this one, i recommend: "Godfather part- 1 and 2".

I remember going to see 'The Funeral' when it first came out. It stirred me as a film featuring extremely compelling -- and extremely non-compelling elements alike. The acting is fabulous, and each scene in that sense and taken from that perspective is a gem. It's filmed theater, though, not really traditional film acting per se. Every actor does their spiel at one point or the other. Chris Penn might be the most memorable in his boisterous impersonation of a psychotic mobster, but really it's probably Annabella Sciorra and Chris Walken who deliver the most impressive performances. Apart from that, the film truly feels half baked (not always without charm, though): Ferrara is notorious for not being always on top of his storyboard, and one can tell here, definitely, especially since the cinematography is rather ugly and uninspired. The script feels more like a play, really (and save for a few outdoor scenes, the film could have been a play, perhaps with greater success), with long, overwrought dialogue which linger in mind nevertheless. So, all in all, 'The Funeral' might not be a very good film (it actually features a few very weak scenes), but at its best, it is truly memorable, and I guess that's why we like Abel Ferrara: regardless of how bad his films can be, they always have something to deliver.

From what little I've watched of Ferrara's work up till now - 6 films including the one under review - this emerges as easily the most substantial (I liked his BODY SNATCHERS [1993] but have always deemed it an unnecessary update).It's generally compelling and filled with typically intense performances - Christopher Walken and Annabella Sciorra from Ferrara's THE ADDICTION (1995), Chris Penn, Vincent Gallo and Benicio Del Toro (though some of the over-the-top histrionics, usually involving Penn's bad-tempered character, do raise the occasional unintended chuckle). The plot, adopting a flashback structure which leads up to the titular occasion, deals with the director's favorite themes - honor, faith, violence - and, as such draws parallels with the gangster films of Coppola, Scorsese and even Tarantino.On the strength of this, I rented two more Ferrara titles - FEAR CITY (1984) and KING OF NEW YORK (1990; again, with Walken) - to go along with BAD LIEUTENANT (1992; which I just recorded off late-night Italian TV, where it was presented in the original language); the latter two, in particular, are films that I've been meaning to check out for years (I just hope it'll be worth it).By the way, though I rented THE FUNERAL from my local DVD outlet as part of a 2-Disc Set with THE ADDICTION, I was actually the one to have brought it over to him from London!