A movie called “Mafia Doctor” has to be a slapstick comedy, right? Something in the vein of “Top Secret!” or “Hot Shots”?
   No such luck. 
   Every bit as uninspired as its title, “Mafia Doctor” — airing this Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS — is a dull drama, a muddled mishmash of mob clichés lifted from vastly superior sources.
   It begins as the story of two poor, petty New Jersey teen mobsters mesmerized by the glamorous Mafia lifestyle, a la “Goodfellas.” But “Goodfellas” showed us the sexy allure, the glamour and the power that might draw someone in. 
   In “Mafia Doctor,” we see a lot of large men in suits constantly threatening to kill people. Why anyone but a sociopath would want to join the clique is left unexplained.
   But Frank Siena (a blandly handsome Danny Nucci) wants in — just a little bit. An aspiring doctor, he figures he’ll do some errands for the local organized crime family to earn a little cash. Frank’s meant to be a decent, moral person, but getting a job at the local mall never crosses his mind. In New Jersey, apparently, there’s organized crime or nothing.
  Frank’s also a moron. “I’m just gonna work a few more jobs … and then get out,” he says. Hasn’t he ever seen a Mafia flick before? Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in, as the saying goes.
   If he had seen “The Godfather,” he’d recognize the mob boss, Nicola Dellarusso (Paul Sorvino), an old-fashioned, mythic Mafioso, more Don Corleone than Tony Soprano.
   “You see the men out there?” he asks. “They got food on the table because of me. Their children have shoes on their feet because of me.”
   And if any of those men annoy him, they get whacked because of him.
   The Mafia controls construction, and Frank’s dad is the honest schlub who gets in the way. To keep the Don from whacking the Dad, Frank pledges to work for him forever.
   Ordinarily, this wouldn’t change Dellarusso’s mind, but Frank appears to be the most naturally gifted doc in history. When his dad comes home with a gash, Frank grabs some household needle and thread and applies stitches, something he somehow picked up on the Jersey streets when he wasn’t hocking stolen goods.
   So Dellarusso, knowing a good thing when he sees it, pays to send Frank to medical school — in Italy, oddly enough, where eight years of studies fly by in a 30-second montage.
   On his return, Frank lands a plum hospital job. (“He’s a natural,” says a fellow doctor, observing him with awe. “He’s the best I’ve seen.”) And to repay Dellarusso, he serves as personal physician for the thug and his wife, played by a criminally underused Olympia Dukakis.
   At first, all’s well. But soon Frank’s being asked to purposely botch heart surgery. Meanwhile, an incredibly irritating, hyperactive detective is snooping around. And Frank’s wife, the daughter of a Mafioso herself, is starting to suspect that their life of luxury doesn’t come from a rookie doctor’s salary. (After all, the guy has to cover malpractice insurance.)
   “Mafia Doctor” manages to hit every imaginable cliché — of mob stories, medical stories and love stories. When Frank first spots the woman he’ll later marry, the music swells and everything moves in slow motion. (Unlike, say, “Wayne’s World,” this isn’t done for comic effect.)
    The only multidimensional character in the movie is Frank’s best friend, Danny Keegan (Jonathan Scarfe, who played Noah Wyle’s brother Chase on “ER”), whose envy slowly builds to a rage. 
   For a while, the screenplay allows this to be expressed via acting. But everything has to be spelled out; around the time the friend says, “You think you’re better than me?” our only trace of interest in the film drains away.
   We all miss “The Sopranos” on Sunday nights, but “Mafia Doctor” won’t fill the void. Check out “Alias” and “Boomtown” instead, and whack this one off your list.

March 14, 2003© 2003 Media Life

-Dan Jewel is a senior editor at Biography Magazine in New York and a frequent contributor to Media Life.

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