Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19621 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-12-22
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 258 minutes

Amazon.com
If you have an appetite for Sicilian soapers, then you're like all those other people who made Mario Puzo's The Last Don the highest Nielsen-rated show for the week in mid-May 1997 when it originally aired. And who could blame you, since the story line of this TV miniseries is chock-full of all the familiar elements that make up a bestseller--power, money, sex, murder, gambling, madness, fame, Hollywood, loyalties made and broken. The story proper begins with a little Romeo and Juliet when Rose Marie, daughter of Don Domenico Clericuzio (Danny Aiello), falls for the youngest son of the warring Santadio family. On their wedding night, Rose Marie's new husband and the entire Santadio family are slaughtered by the Clericuzios to avoid further conflict between the two families, and Rose Marie goes completely insane and grows up to be Kirstie Alley. But not before she gives birth to another Santadio, Dante (so named because he has to live in Hell), in whom she invests all her hatred for her own family. So he grows up to be a psychotic hitman, played with sly and sadistic ingenuity by Rory Cochrane. The Clericuzios' chief executioner, Pippi (played with smooth aplomb by Joe Mantegna), is responsible for killing Rose Marie's husband, and wants his own son, metaphorically overburdened with the name "Cross," to follow in his footsteps. The sins of the fathers are visiting all over the sons in this picture, and naturally the two kids will have to resolve this inheritance. The acting is the main attraction here. Aiello in particular invests The Don with a stately grace that is just right. --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews

Movie as good as the book
After reading the book, I was very impressed with the movie. Never is the movie like the book....but not in this case. The movie followed the book very accurately. Everything that happens in the book are exactly what happens in the movie. So if you read the book already, you will not be disappointed with the movie, I promise. The movie was well done and I would recommend it to anyone who loves Puzo or not.

A shame the real Mafia isn't this noble and great and stuff
TV movies are inherently awful, it's like an iron-clad rule. This one is a cut above the rest, and it was quite popular back in 1997, especially for the morbidly curious.

Now, in this post-Sopranos age, it's still quite funny. Puzo just went for broke with his source novel, another attempt to write about his fairy-tale Mafia.

The Last Don is the story about...the last Don, Don Clericuzio (for some reason, even the name is funny), a truly old-school Don who, while a thief and a murderer, is also a quasi-philosopher, loving father, and a venerable man of wisdom, his years of experience extorting, racketeering, and ordering the deaths of men having given him great insight into the human condition.

This is an 'epic', which means it had to be shown over two or three or however many nights it was, to tell the story of the Don's 'family', his troubled nieces and sons and all of their issues. Basically, the Don has some ridiculous stake in Las Vegas (since apparently, Puzo never watched Casino) and his son, or nephew, I forget, a guy named Crucifixio (is this even a name?) runs the...I forget which casino. Then there's this son, or heir, Dante, who wears renaissance hats that wouldn't be out of place in a Slick Rick video, who is just a bad guy and who you know will ruin the family.

There's a whole subplot about Hollywood, too, and the various degenerates and lowlifes who are found in the film industry. Cross falls for Athena, blah blah blah, there's a scummy agent, there's a bitter old writer (basically a Puzo-esque character), and some other bad people who get shot, etc. Easily one of the best characters is Lia Vazi, or Vazzi, who is from Sicily, and therefore 'the real deal', a stone killer proficient in all manner of execution. He's a good character. I was glad they brought him back in The Last Don II.

And of course, we have Danny Aiello, who has this amazingly bad aging makeup at the end which is hilarious and reason enough to watch this rather entertaining made-for-TV business. Of course, the ending 'suggests' that the don dies peacefully in his sleep (apparently, nobody in this family has been indicted or is in Federal prison, and the FBI is typically incompetent). Of course, when The Last Don II opens, and yes, I'll spoil it for you, the Don is still alive long enough to discuss how his old-school wife used to knit his own shirts(!), etc, etc.

It's completely fairy tale Mafia stuff, almost as if Puzo wished the Mafia were like this. Will offer no insight into the real world of organized crime, and compared with something well-written and realistic like The Sopranos, The Last Don is simply Cheez-Whiz for a slow night. But with this ridiculously cheap DVD, at least you won't have to watch commercials, too.

Just a tremendous effort by Aiello, Daryl Hannah, that Sicilian guy, Jason Gedrick, Joe Mantegna, and Kirstie Ally, who cries a lot, etc. I have faith that a Last Don III will appear one of these days...

one of mario puzo's finest.
this is a great mob story,it shows almost every angle and position in a mafia-"family".danny aiello was terrific and jason gedric did very well and should be considered in some future mob movies with most experienced mob actors getting older.i appreciated how it told story of a full decade.(also,the book is well worth reading)R.I.P. MARIO PUZO