Wisegirls Reviews

Rehashed themes and a formulaic story line undermine this mobbed-up female bonding story. Fleeing a tragic past, former medical student Meg (Mira Sorvino) moves to New York to live with her invalid grandmother. She finds a job waitressing at Il Santolino, a family-run Italian restaurant, which &151; surprise, surprise &151; is operated by the mafia. Her medical training comes in handy when she saves a coked-out mobster who shoots his nose off in the restaurant's backroom, which puts her in the Santolino family's good graces. Meg adjusts to her new position, which involves dispensing medical advice to mob boss Mr. Santolino (Arthur Nascarella) and wrapping drug-filled doggie bags for customers. She forms a tight bond with the two other waitresses, smart-mouthed firecracker Raychel (Mariah Carey), who her sights set on becoming manager, and lively waif Kate (Melora Walters), an aspiring actress. Unfortunately, just as Meg decides the mob lifestyle is too much for her and decides to get out, she witnesses a murder. Forced to dismember the body and feed it into a meat grinder, she's now an accessory and tries to get out of town before the police catch her. When they do, the cops offer immunity if she'll wear a wire and try to get one of the Santolinos to implicate himself in the crime. This precipitates the movie's sole action scene, a predictable shootout that, unfortunately, is also the only violence seen on film that involves both Sorvino and Carey. Given her pitiful turn in GLITTER (2001), Carey delivers a surprisingly respectable performance, and despite reports of a knockout cat fight with Sorvino on the set, the actresses' onscreen friendship is convincing. Sorvino brings professional efficiency to her character's cliched wrong-place/wrong-time woes; if the same could be said of the script and directing, the result would have been a better film.