Mobsters and Mormons
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| Mobsters and Mormons | |
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 |
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| Directed by | John E. Moyer |
| Produced by | Kurt Hale Dave Hunter John E. Moyer |
| Written by | John E. Moyer |
| Starring | Mark DeCarlo, Jeanette Puhich, Clayton Taylor, Scott Christopher, Britani Bateman, Olesya Rulin, Jan Broberg Felt, John E. Moyer, Michael Kagan |
| Distributed by | Zion Films |
| Release date(s) | 2005 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $350,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Mobsters and Mormons is a 2005 film. It was written by, directed by, produced by and features John E. Moyer. It is also produced by Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter of Halestorm Entertainment. This film does feature some LDS centric humor that is meant to appeal to LDS audiences, but also features some humor that LDS audiences are not likely to get.
Carmine is part of the mob in Philadelphia, hoping to soon be promoted to captain. While taking care of business, he and his team are photographed by the FBI performing illegal activities. After some discussion, Carmine decides to testify against his boss, then goes into the Witness Protection Program. His family is moved to Utah, in the heart of the Mormon Corridor.
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[edit] Main cast
- Mark DeCarlo as Carmine "The Beans" Zindelli Pasquale (George Cheeseman)
- Jeanette Puhich as Gina Pasquale (Linda Cheeseman)
- Clayton Taylor as Vincent Pasquale (Patrick Cheeseman)
- Scott Christopher as Michael Jaymes
- Britani Bateman as Kate Jaymes
- Olesya Rulin as Julie Jaymes
- Jan Broberg Felt as Louise Means
- John E. Moyer as Agent Tuttle
- Michael Kagan as Angello Marcello
[edit] Story
The opening credits roll over a flying, nighttime shot of downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The dialog begins at a wedding reception at the table of three mobsters. Carmine Pasquale (Mark DeCarlo) is complaining about the taste of the coffee. We find out later that Carmine has the nickname of "The Beans" because he orders a very special type of coffee bean that he grinds himself. When he sees a young man walk through the room, he and his team leaves the table, following the young man.
In a recent jewelry store robbery, two necklaces went missing. Carmine and his team are questioning the young man to find out what happened to the necklaces. Carmine tells his team to tie him up. Carmine goes to talk to the boss, Angello Marcello, where he finds out that someone else got the promotion to captain that he was hoping to get. When he gets back to the room, the young man has been duct taped, so the three mobsters have to carry him out to the car. This is when the FBI manages to get the incriminating photographs. When the mobsters make a stop to pick up the necklaces, the police close in and arrest them.
When Carmine is being interviewed, the FBI agents say that they have enough to put him away for twenty to twenty-five years. Carmine won't talk until the agents say that they will let it be known that Carmine did talk. The next scene is Carmine with his wife, Gina (Jeanette Puhich), and son, Vincent (Clayton Taylor) watching the news report of the conviction of Angello. They then get their new identities in the Witness Protection Program as George, Linda and Patrick Cheeseman to "Happy Valley", Utah.
Meanwhile, in the neighborhood in to which the Cheesemans will be moving, the bishop of the local ward has to leave the church meeting because he was paged with a family emergency. His first counselor, Brother Jaymes, is left in charge of the meeting. By the time that the Jaymes family arrives at home, we find out that the bishop's father has died and the bishop will be in a distant community for a few weeks taking care of the funeral and deciding (with the rest of his family) on the disposition of the family farm.
What follows is culture shock, on both sides. But except for the Jaymes family and one other, all of the neighbors (Mormons) want to have nothing to do with the Cheeseman family (Catholics). Throughout the film, the Jaymes family does manage to get a few more of the neighbors to be neighborly to the members of the Cheeseman family.
But the mobsters have recently hired an IT guy. Of those home addresses being ordering the special coffee beans that Carmine likes, only one is new since Carmine's disappearance. A team of two is sent to take care of Carmine. When they show up to verify that Carmine lives at the address, Carmine spots them and takes off on foot. There is a short car chase that ends with the FBI capturing the mobsters. The FBI uses an insider to leak that the team was captured before Carmine found out about them, knowing that another team will be sent. After leaving a dinner at the local ward, the Cheesemans get in their van and it blows up.
The next Sunday, it is revealed that the ward bishop is going to move to take care of his recently-widowed mother and the family farm. Michael Jaymes is called by the stake president to become the next bishop of this ward. About half of the ward members vote against supporting Michael Jaymes as bishop. When the Cheeseman family finds out about this, George (Carmine) comes back to speak to the congregation on behalf of Michael Jaymes. Since he has revealed that he is alive, he and his family also go to visit the Jaymes family. The stake president stops by later and tells Michael Jaymes that he will be the bishop.
The movie's final scene takes place six months later, in a scrapbooking store at an "undisclosed location". Scrapbooking was so popular in Utah that the Donald and May Clayton (aka Cheeseman, aka Pasquale) family have opened a scrapbooking store and run it along with their son Jordan. The Mormon missionaries are buying a book in the store, and Donald tells them that it is "on the house". Donald also invites them over for dinner, but no message. The movie ends with Donald telling the missionaries about his wife's cooking.
[edit] Issues in film
[edit] Mormon
This film consistently uses the term Mormon Church when referring to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Mormon to refer to the members of this church. See "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", section "Name of the church" for its preference for name usage.
When deciding to make the film, writer/director John E. Moyer made a conscious decision to use the term Mormon as that is the term most people who are not members of the LDS church identify with.
[edit] Non-association phenomenon
This film openly condemns a problem that has been widely reported in areas with high concentrations of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is members of this church choosing not to associate with people who are not members of it. This phenomenon has been spoken against in talks at the Annual and Semi-annual General Conferences of the LDS Church, urging members to be friendly and neighborly to people regardless of their religion. 1 ".. Let us as Latter-day Saints reach out to others not of our faith. Let us never act in a spirit of arrogance or with a holier-than-thou attitude. Rather, may we show love and respect and helpfulness toward them. We are greatly misunderstood, and I fear that much of it is of our own making. We can be more tolerant, more neighborly, more friendly, more of an example than we have been in the past. Let us teach our children to treat others with friendship, respect, love, and admiration. That will yield a far better result than will an attitude of egotism and arrogance." - Church President Gordon B. Hinkley, May 2000. 2 ".. Let us be good people. Let us be friendly people. Let us be neighborly people." - President Hinkley, May 2001
[edit] Trivia
- The line "Leave the gun. Take the granola." is a parody of "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." from the film of The Godfather.
