Guido and Frankie Taglioni (Mir Waiss Najibi and Robert Throckmorton) embark on a road trip from Las Vegas to L.A. under the careful guidance of Carmine (Michael Wayne Brown), the “Family’s” Consigliere to hunting down the killer of their mobster bosses. The main problem? They are two idiots.
Filmed in 2021, this low (very low, very low) budget movie is a fun, but not exceptional, comedy that becomes a road movie about three mobsters, with all the surreal situations involved. Dumbfellas (the original title was Mafia Reloaded) had a long post-production, as always happens with b-movie projects, which rarely find distribution, but in the end it was released on DVD and Blu-ray.
Director Lance Polland does his job very well and also demonstrates a certain talent in some sequences (in the one where Christine Nguyen and Michael Brown meet) although the main problem are the indoor scenes. Many sequences do not feature extras, and this is probably a factor due to the budget. The main actors often act in almost deserted places, without a shadow of living beings.
And, many times, the feeling is that the scenes were shot in houses owned by one of the actors, always due to the budget. Is this a serious problem? No.
We are talking about a B-Movie production, where the main intent is to entertain the audience. And this result has partly been achieved. In the movie, as you know, our lovely Christine Nguyen appears in the role of Tina, a sexy girl (actually a prostitute) met by Carmine’s character. The chemistry between the two strikes immediately, in a sequence worthy of a Retromedia softcore film (a genre of which Christine is a veteran), and the subsequent sex scene is quite intense (and fun) for a production of this kind, and maybe one of the best sequences for Christine since the softcore genre died.
It’s a shame that his character disappears almost immediately, despite the poster and credits suggesting a bigger role. However, his character’s fate is explained to the audience during the final credits in a rather entertaining way.
Another softcore veteran appears in the movie, Robert Donovan, mostly known for the Rod Steele movies directed by Rolfe Kanefsky, a erotic parodies of James Bond. Again, his screen time is really short, but let’s hope that the production company can recall both Robert and Christine in a future project.
Speaking of the main actors, Michael Wayne Brown, in the role of Carmine, has the best scenes (not just the one with Christine, lucky guy!) while Najibi and Throckmorton are ok, despite less than perfect expressiveness in their acting. As already mentioned, Poland has the talent and deserves bigger budgets for movies of this kind.
Dumbfellas is a good low budget production. Funny enough, sexy (thanks God for Christine Nguyen) which could have been even better, but the result, as already said, is admirable. The only flaw of the DVD: no featurette or behind the scenes.
