Born in the Bronx and raised in upstate New York, Abel Ferrara started his professional film career on Mulberry Street in 1975. For the past year he's been living on the block, and the feast of San Gennaro is the subject of his new film. While he has used this location for a few of his features, this time it's the star of the film.
Tells the story of Rainbow Randolph, the corrupt, costumed star of a popular children's TV show, who is fired over a bribery scandal and replaced by squeaky-clean Smoochy, a puffy fuscia rhinoceros. As Smoochy catapults to fame - scoring hit ratings and the affections of a network executive - Randolph makes the unsuspecting rhino the target of his numerous outrageous attempts to exact revenge and reclaim his status as America's sweetheart.
Al Stanco has lived all of his life in Brooklyn and does some work for the local crime lord, Danny Parente. New to the neighbourhood is Gabriela, a filmmaker shooting a documentary on the real Brooklyn. Al and Gabriela become friendly but the relationship is strained when he discovers her true goal is to expose Parente's criminal activities. When Al sees the evidence Gabriela has uncovered, which implicates Parente in the death of many locals (including Al's own father), he seeks revenge in a dangerous confrontation with his boss.
The story concerns the funeral of one of three brothers in a family of gangsters that lived in New York in 1930s. Details of the past of the brothers and their families are shown through a series of flashbacks.