Welcome to Collinwood (2002)

October 18, 2002, release date

Directed by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Screenplay by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Based on the screenplay I Soliti Ignoti by Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Mario Monicelli, Agenore Incorici, Furio Scarpellil

Music by Mark Mothersbaugh

Edited by Amy E. Duddleston

Cinematography by Lisa Rinzler, Charles Minsky

William H. Macy as Riley

Isaiah Washington as Leon

Sam Rockwell as Pero Mahlovic

Michael Jeter as Toto

Luis Guzmán as Cosimo

Patricia Clarkson as Rosalind

Andrew Davoli as Basil

George Clooney as Jerzy Antwerp

David Warshofsky as Sergeant Babitch

Jennifer Esposito as Carmela

Gabrielle Union as Michelle

John Buck Jr. as the old man in prison

Basil David Russo at the baby

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

Produced by Gaylord Films, H5B5 Media AG, Pandora Cinema, Section Eight

I was so looking forward to seeing Welcome to Collinwood when I found out that it is a remake of one of my favorite films noir: I Solito Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street). A remake that pays homage to its source material should be fun to watch. And it can’t hurt that William H. Macy, Patricia Clarkson, and Sam Rockwell are some of the stars.

Alas, I am sorry to say that Welcome to Collinwood doesn’t come close to matching the charm and good humor of the original film, a film that I found to be a complete joy. I can still recommend Welcome to Collinwood. There’s a lot to like about the film, even if it didn’t capture the esprit of the original (which has always been a tall task in my film-viewing experience).

I can heartily recommend the original film: I Solito Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street). Click here for my blog post about it.

Anthony and Joe Russo, the writers and directors of Welcome to Collinwood, are from Cleveland, Ohio, and Collinwood is a neighborhood of Cleveland. The plot is remarkably true to the original screenplay, but it is updated and adjusted for references to the Collinwood area. For example, the film’s soundtrack starts with a long train whistle, or maybe it’s a factory whistle, or maybe one blends into the other: Cleveland, and the Collinwood neighborhood in particular, is a rail hub and once was home to many factory workers.

Click here for more information about Collinwood, in Cleveland, Ohio.

It’s obvious that Welcome to Collinwood is meant to be a valentine to the original film and to film in general. One after another silent-era intertitle cards, with line borders and with scrolls in the corners, tell viewers at the start the location and the time of the film:

“Somewhere in Cleveland.”

“Not so long ago.”

A shot of the four main characters—Riley, Leon, Pero, Toto, a gang of thieves standing in a row—comes next. Their story is told in flashback, which is introduced with another intertitle card stating that their story starts about three weeks earlier.

Later in the film, during the stakeout of the jeweler’s apartment, an iris lens is used to focus on the jeweler’s safe and to mimic the fact that one of the characters, Pero, is using a telescope to check out the apartment. The use of intertitle cards and the iris lens recalls the silent era, and both techniques move the narrative of Welcome to Collinwood forward.

The musical score is jazzy and whimsical, which is perfect for this film. Its touches of humor come almost directly from the original script for I Solito Ignoti. For example, the gang films the jeweler and his safe for use in planning their heist. Riley presents the final result to the rest of the gang, and they discover that the footage starts accidentally with shots of Riley’s baby. Riley explains that he wants to send the footage of the baby to the baby’s mother while she’s serving her prison sentence for fraud. Thanks to Riley, the footage has other flaws, including the fact that the jeweler blocks the last number on the safe’s combination in all nine takes. Jerzy, who is helping the gang in the planning of the heist, declares, “Well, as a film, it’s a disaster.” Riley responds, “It’s a documentary. It’s supposed to look like that.”

In spite of all the good intentions on the part of the Russo brothers, this remake just cannot compete with the original. This modern-day group of thieves is not as lovable as the thieves in the original film. It was hard for me to find a lot of sympathy for them when they repeatedly beat and stabbed Pero Mahlovic—and in the presence of the baby, Riley’s son, no less! Welcome to Collinwood clearly pays homage to its source material, but it didn’t have to be updated so completely, with so much violence and so much foul language. (And in front of the baby, too!)

For me, the baby is the real star of Welcome to Collinwood. He steals every scene in which he appears. From my research online and from the features on the DVD, I learned that the actor playing the baby is related to the directors, and maybe that explains why he makes so many appearances. He could have been in more scenes as far as I’m concerned. He was a natural in front of the camera. But, please, no realistic violence and foul language—for the baby’s sake!