The Pope of Greenwich Village Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Pope of Greenwich Village Blu-ray Movie Review

"Charlie! They took my thumb!"

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 23, 2024

"Nothing hurts as much as you think it will. You go numb... then you wrap your belt around your wrist and get to the nearest hospital."

Would-be crooks and losers have been the antiheroes of films for the better part of a century. Even in the silent film era, criminals with hearts of gold have been stealing, raking and conning those with enough illegitimate legitimacy to deserve whatever's comin' to 'em. The Pope of Greenwich Village doesn't stray far from its classic genre roots, with a cool, collected Mickey Rourke and an emotionally erratic Eric Roberts trying to make good on life after losing their jobs. Whether the ends justify the means is completely irrelevant. Whether you feel for the cousins and their dwindling luck is, and really remains all that matters. Happy endings are for suckers, though, and the sense that nothing will ever go right reigns supreme, leaving us wandering from minute to minute, scene to scene, if either will still be breathing when the credits roll.

"Murder rap? Nobody came within twenty feet of that yo-yo. He dived into that hole like a f**king gopher!"

Charlie (Mickey Rourke) is a thoughtful and dependable manager in an upscale restaurant in Greenwich Village who dreams of having a similar place. He has saved some money, but it hasn't been easy, and he needs a lot more. He's also in a serious relationship with Diane (Daryl Hannah), who thinks that it's time for them to start a family and have a baby. But Charlie isn't ready to be a father. His cousin Paulie (Eric Roberts) is a waiter in the same restaurant and is stealing from the owner. Charlie has repeatedly warned him to be careful, but Paulie is convinced that no one can figure out his tricks. He has even starts working with the chef, an alcoholic, who doesn't seem to care what he does as long as keeps bringing him more of his favorite vodka. But then Paulie is caught and fired. On the same night, Charlie is told to pack up and leave. Soon after, Charlie, who desperately needs money to continue making his alimony payments to his ex-wife, agrees to help Paulie and an aging Irish safecracker (Kenneth McMillan) steal a large amount of money from Bed Bug Eddie (Burt Young), a kooky Italian gangster who's been paying a couple of shady cops to keep their colleagues away.

Click here to read the rest of Dr. Svet Atanasov's review of The Pope of Greenwich Village, which he calls a film "in which Rourke really shines." Adding, "its unusual mix of comedy and drama appears to have been inspired by some of Martin Scorsese's classic gangster films."

The Pope of Greenwich Village Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"My Walter was as tough as a bar of iron, and he didn't get that from his father. Now, do you wanna fight, Officer? Or do you get the hell out of my house!"

The Pope of Greenwich Village returns to Blu-ray after a nine-year hiatus, this time courtesy of Sandpiper Pictures, which doesn't exactly have a great reputation for releasing the best video presentations. This 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer appears to be the same as the one released in 2015 by Shout Factory, and that's not necessarily a good thing. Dated through and through, the image bounds between sharp and soft, and some filtering has been applied that makes it questionable how much the reductions in clarity are optical and how much they're due to an aging master. Grain is present but rather pulpy, lacking the refinement of more filmic presentations. Likewise, detail and fine texturing is inconsistent; crisp and clean one second, smothered and roughhewn the next. Colors are generally solid, with vivid primaries and flattering skintones, and contrast is rich and satisfying. Black levels crush out shadow detail though and delineation suffers. All told, it could certainly be much worse, but a proper modern remastering could probably make things much better.

The Pope of Greenwich Village Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

"Horses ain't like people, man, they can't make themselves better than they're born. See, with a horse, it's all in the gene. It's the f**king gene that does the running. The horse has got absolutely nothing to do with it."

The latest Blu-ray edition of The Pope of Greenwich Village features a more-than-decent DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo track that, for all intents and purposes, is identical to the LPCM stereo mix included on the 2015 Shout Factory release. Voices are intelligible and neatly prioritized in the soundscape, music and effects are relatively strong and boisterous, and there isn't anything out of sorts. It tends to sound a tad dated, with the kind of faint canned tinniness that's common to mid-80s crime dramas, but it's never overly distracting.

The Pope of Greenwich Village Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While the 2015 Shout Factory release of The Pope of Greenwich Village included four short featurettes and two "personality profiles," the Sandpiper Pictures edition only features the film's theatrical trailer (SD, 2 minutes).

The Pope of Greenwich Village Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Honest work. Let me tell ya somethin' about 'honest work'. When somebody says they got 'honest work', you know what they got? They got a shit job, that's what they got."

Better everyman crime dramas managed to survive the tumultuous mid-80s, but you could do worse than The Pope of Greenwich Village. Eric Roberts comes on too strong and Geraldine Page's Oscar nomination (for eight minutes of screentime) is a bit of a stretch, but there's enough to the cousins' heartache and heartbreak to make for an engaging and entertaining two hours of period criminality. Sandpiper's Blu-ray release isn't the greatest either, with a problematic video presentation, solid lossless audio offering, and an almost barebones supplemental package, but it's currently the best way to watch The Pope of Greenwich Village in high definition.