A classic gangster film with a healthy dose of crime, gambling and heavily tattooed Italian mobsters is always a pleasure to watch.
However, Tomorrow’s Today, directed by Timothy Hines, is not your typical gangster film. Rather, it is a delightful comedy feature that manages the convergence of humor and crime in the most hilarious way.
Set in Astoria, New York City, Tomorrow’s Today revolves around the life of Charlie Boy played by Greg Kritikos. Charlie is an ebullient middle-aged man who is trying to move away from a life of organized crime after narrowly avoiding arrest. However, his numerous financial challenges push him to become a part-time comedian and a con artist to make ends meet.
In between trying to reform himself and managing quarrels with his wife, one of his closest friends, Tommy G (Annunziato Carbone), a gambling addict, asks him for help: after having accumulated a mountain of gambling debt and with no means to pay it off, he gets Charlie to begrudgingly agree to rob a liquor store with him.
Unfortunately for Charlie and Tommy, their heist sets a chain of events in motion that endangers both their lives as well as those of their loved ones: the owner of the liquor store turns out to be the very same individual that Tommy owes money to. This obviously complicates matters further.
In this production, Timothy Hines clearly demonstrates his apt directing skills. His story-telling adopts an experimental twist by injecting rich humor into what otherwise typically would have been a 'regular' gangster film, filled with gory scenes of destruction, violence and pain. However, Hines deftly balances the perfect marriage of crime and humor in a manner where neither of those two elements waters down the other; a difficult balancing act, but masterfully done in this highly entertaining film. The scenes are short and fluid, with quick transitions seamlessly edited into each other, ensuring a consistent flow of the plot.
While it may deliberately feature the clichéd gangster aesthetic, Tomorrow’s Today is a well-executed film with great dialogue, captivating scenes and good laughs to boot.
Highly recommended to both comedy and crime fans.
