Married to the Mob(1988)
Orion Pictures Aug 19, 1988
A mobster's wife who hates her lifestyle gets a chance to change it when her husband is killed - if the Long Island mob and the FBI will only let her.
Release Details
Original Release | Aug 19, 1988 | Moderate
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2026-10-25T14:30:49.518Z
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$3,231,056
$21,486,757
$21,486,757
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Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby SR
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English
Summaries
Plot Summary
- At a Long Island railroad station, Frank "the Cucumber" DeMarco (Alec Baldwin) and Tommy (Paul Lazar), two Mafia associates, wait for the commuter train on which they will assassinate a person known only as 'The Fat Man' (Captain Haggerty), an enemy of crime lord Tony "The Tiger" Russo (Dean Stockwell). Before the train arrives, Tommy informs DeMarco that his wife, Angela (Michelle Pfeiffer), turned down an invitation to an important Mafiosi dinner party to which the DeMarcos were invited. DeMarco carries out the assassination flawlessly and leaves the dead Fat Man behind on the crowded train.Later that day, at her Long Island beauty parlor, Angela offends Tony's vain wife Connie (Mercedes Ruehl), as well as the other fellow Mafia wives, Rose (Joan Cusack), Theresa (Ellen Foley) and Phyllis (O-Lan Jones), by declining an invitation to a card game. At home, DeMarco confronts Angela about refusing social opportunities and jeopardizing his career, but she expresses dissatisfaction with their lifestyle and ill-gotten possessions. Breaking into tears, she claims, "Everything we own fell off a truck." Although she wants a divorce, DeMarco laughs at the suggestion and tells her to take a Valium.Soon after, DeMarco and several other Mafia gangsters gather at the King's Roost, a dinner club with a medieval castle theme. As several FBI agents surreptitiously watch, Tony gives a necklace to a waitress, Karen Lutnick (Nancy Travers). After dinner, Tony meets Karen in a hotel room to have sex, but then suspects that she has another tryst scheduled. Later in the evening, DeMarco enters Karen's hotel room and finds her soaking in the bathtub with a bullet in her head, just before Tony kills him.Meanwhile, FBI agent Mike Downey (Matthew Modine) surmises that Tony is guilty of the double murder and gains permission from his superior to work on the case. After DeMarco's funeral, Tony approaches Angela and forces a kiss on her. Unaware that Angela does not welcome Tony's overtures, FBI agents snap a photo of the act. Rose also sees the kiss. Despite Angela's claim to the contrary, the Mafia housewives presume Angela is pursuing Tony and confront her at the supermarket. Connie threatens to crush Angela and demonstrates with a carton of eggs.Taking action, Angela donates her house, car and all her furniture to charity and, with her 10-year-old son Joey (Anthony J. Nicci), moves to a tenement on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Mike and Ed Benitez (Oliver Platt), another FBI agent who has been staking out Angela, wire her apartment. When Mike accidentally encounters Angela in the apartment elevator, he introduces himself as a workman named Mike Smith. After attempting unsuccessfully to get a job at a department store cosmetics counter, Angela seeks employment at the Chicken Lickin' fast food restaurant, but leaves when she catches the manager spying on her as she changes into the store uniform.Eventually, Angela is hired at the "Hello Gorgeous" hair salon, where she works with Rita (Carol East), the manager. After Tony's henchmen learn Angela's location, Tony and Tommy visit her, bringing a gift of groceries, and remind her that she is still in the "family." Although Angela evades their invitation to dinner, Connie, hiding in her station wagon, observes Tony kissing Angela's hand.After encountering Mike a second time at the apartment, Angela asks him on a date.On Long Island, gunmen from a Miami underworld family ambush Tony and his entourage at a Burger World. Although Tony escapes by shooting all his attackers, he decides to set up a meeting with his Miami rivals to settle their differences.Mike and Angela are sharing intimate moments in her apartment, when Connie arrives looking for Tony and instead finds Mike. After she leaves, the defeated Angela explains to Mike that she is connected to the Russo crime family and unable to start a new life outside the mob. Mike then realizes he has misjudged Angela and tells her that she deserves a second chance. However, Mike's superiors at the FBI chastise him for his romantic interlude with Angela and bring her in for questioning. Mike's hostile boss, FBI Regional Director Franklin (Trey Wilson), threatens to send Angela to prison for donating stolen goods to charity and for illegal tax returns submitted by her now dead husband, and he also accuses her of colluding in DeMarco's murder. To put further pressure on Angela, he has Rita, her salon manager, arrested on immigration charges. When Angela complains that the FBI employs the same tactics as the mob, Franklin retorts that the "mob is run by murdering, thieving, lying, cheating psychopaths" while the FBI works for the President of the United States. Afraid that Joey will be placed in a foster home, Angela reluctantly agrees to cooperate with the FBI by flirting with Tony and gaining entrance into his world.Tony invites Angela to accompany him to Miami, where the meeting with his rivals will be held. Connie decides to surprise Tony and join him in Miami, but after learning he booked the honeymoon suite, she suspects that Angela is with him and flies to Miami with revenge on her mind.At the hotel, Tony gives Angela a gift and Angela, shaking with fear, reciprocates by giving him a ring that has a surveillance device inside it. Meanwhile, Mike and other FBI agents are shadowing Angela. When Tony, realizes he has seen Mike several times, he orders his underlings to bring him to the honeymoon suite, where his identity as an FBI agent is revealed. Mike tells the mobsters that agents will arrive and arrest them at any moment, but instead, the now-deranged Connie arrives. She slugs Angela to the floor and, claiming she has "nothing to live for", threatens to shoot and kill Tony. Chaos ensues, as Mike and the mobsters shoot at each other, but Mike subdues all but Tony, who is still held at gunpoint by Connie. However, Angela knocks out Connie, and several agents enter and make arrests.Sometime later, Tony leaves a courthouse after his trial and acquittal. As he goes to the men's room to relieve himself, Connie is there and shoots him. But the whole sequence is a dream as Tony is really in prison in a small cell serving his time, and having constant nightmares about his angry and jealous wife coming after him.Later in New York City, Mike calls Angela from a phone booth outside the "Hello Gorgeous" salon and asks her for a haircut. When he arrives, Angela, remembering his comment about second chances, decides to give Mike a break and kisses him, and the crowd in the salon breaks into applause.A series of outtakes and deleted scenes are shown over the closing credits involving scenes of several more characters not seen or only glimpsed in the movie whom include Chris Isaak playing a clown, David Johanson playing a priest at DeMarco's funeral, and Joe Spinell playing a gangster named 'Tiptoes' Mazzilli attending DeMarco's funeral and who is later killed in another deleted scene by Tony.
Storyline
- Angela deMarco is unhappily married to high Mafia member Frank deMarco. When Frank is killed, Angela takes the opportunity to break free of the Mafia world entirely and start a new life. But Frank's boss, Tony Russo, begins to court the unresponsive Angela. The FBI begins surveillance on her, thinking her to be his new mistress. FBI agent Mike Downey goes undercover as Angela's neighbor, but soon finds himself attracted to Angela himself. — Reid Gagle In suburban New York, 'Cucumber' Frank de Marco works for mobster Tony 'The Tiger' Russo. This mob family does everything together, with each member surviving completely from what they get from each other, which does not sit well with Frank's wife, Angela de Marco, who wants a divorce and out of the mob life but which she knows deep in her heart will and can never happen. Tony kills Frank and waitress Karen Lutnick after Tony catches Frank and Karen, his squeeze, having an affair. Neither Angela or Tony's wife, the controlling and jealous Connie Russo who is the only person Tony is truly afraid of, knows about the affairs. When Tony starts making moves on Angela, which does not sit well either with Angela or Connie, Angela decides to chuck in everything and move with her seven year old son Joey de Marco to the city, effectively running away from the mob and the only life she knows. Despite the difficulties having no money and no job, Angela wants them to lead a clean life. FBI agent Mike Downey, who along with his partner Ed Benitez have been tailing Tony and his gang, believes Tony killed Frank and Karen, which if he could get evidence of such could place Tony behind bars for the rest of his life. Mike believes Angela could be the key to nabbing Tony, as he also believes Angela's move to the city is to set up a love nest for her and Tony. Complications ensue when Tony does find Angela in the city, when Connie finds that Tony has found Angela, as Tony gets into a violent mob war, and as Mike gets closer to Angela than he expected, each falling for the other in the process without her knowing he is FBI. — Huggo The mobster 'Cucumber' Frank de Marco is married with the housewife Angela de Marco and she in unhappy with their marriage and wants the divorce. Frank is having a love affair with Karen Lutnick, who is the mistress of his boss Tony 'The Tiger' Russo. When Tony discovers their love affair, he kills them in a party. Tony is under surveillance of the FBI agents Mike Downey and Ed Benitez and during the wake, Tony kisses Angela. The agents and Tony's wife Connie Russo believe that the widow Angela is having an affair with Tony. Angela takes the opportunity to move from the suburbs to a small apartment in New York with her son. Meanwhile Mike bugs her apartment and soon they fall in love with each other. But Tony discovers her new address and courts her. Soon the FBI Senior Management blackmails Angela to force her to get close to Tony to help the FBI to arrest him and she discovers that Mike is an agent. Will Angela give a second chance to Mike? — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Michelle Pfeiffer , Matthew Modine , Dean Stockwell , Alec Baldwin and Mercedes Ruehl redefine family values in this bona fide mafia hit that's so hilarious, it's an offer you can't refuse" (The Washington Post). Angela De Marco (Pfeiffer) is stuck in a loveless marriage to an adulterous philanderer who also just happens to be a mobster. Tired of living with a two-timing husband and his laundered money, she gets a new lease on life when hes iced by Tony The Tiger Russo; a ruthless kingpin who's always had a thing for the beautiful Angela and now is free to put the moves on the grieving widow. Kissing the Long Island mafia arrivederci, Angela starts over in Manhattan, finding a new job in a beauty salon, but Tony's hot on her trail, still determined to make her his mob mistress. Now, Angela must choose between helping the FBI or spend the rest of her life being Married To The Mob. Directed by Jonathan Demme (Last Embrace). Nominated for Best Supporting Actor ( Dean Stockwell ). — Anonymous
