A frequent casualty of shorter miniseries is quality. A story that might have been a moving, enthralling epic at eight or 10 hours is often a compressed mess at four hours.
Such is the case with "Bella Mafia," which airs tonight and Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CBS/Ch. 2.Lynda LaPlante ("Prime Suspect") adapted her own novel for the small screen, and . . . well, she's got nobody to blame but herself. "Bella Mafia" the miniseries is confusing, disjointed and sometimes just plain silly.
Which is too bad. "Bella Mafia" the book, while no great work of literature, is a great read. It has all the elements that make for a great miniseries - interesting characters, action, intrigue and a story that sweeps through three generations and several decades.
But, as is clearly demonstrated here, it's hard to take a book that runs more than 700 pages and boil it down to a two-part, four-hour TV movie. Particularly when you consider that those four hours really boil down to three hours once you account for advertisements and promos and credits.
"Bella Mafia" is the tale of - you guessed it! - a Mafia family. Don Roberto Luciano (Dennis Farina) is a pretty good guy, as mob chieftans go. He won't get involved in the narcotics dealing, and he opposes the efforts of his rival, Peter Carolla (Tony Lo Bianco) to drag him into the drug trade.
As a result, Luciano's son, Michael (Michael Hayden) is murdered - and Roberto vows to seek vengeance.
In the meantime, Michael's secret girlfriend, Sophia (Nastassja Kinski), gives birth to a son. She gives the boy up and marries Michael's brother, Constantino (Richard Joseph Paul).
(Through a series of coincidences, the boy - named Luka (James Marsden) - ends up being adopted by the evil Carolla.)
The other Luciano boys also marry. Alfredo (Tony Maggio) weds Teresa (Illeana Douglas) in a marriage arranged to further the family's fortunes. And Fredrico (W. Earl Brown) defies his father by marrying a trashy casino girl, Moyra (Meg Tilly).
As CBS has made clear in its promotion for the "Bella Mafia," all of the male members of the Luciano family are murdered in the feud with other elements of the Mafia, leaving Mama Luciano (Vanessa Redgrave), her daughters-in-law and her granddaughter, Rosa (Gina Philips) to seek revenge of their own.
Again, this is a story that just doesn't work in an abbreviated form. None of the characters are well enough developed to care about, and some of them are downright ridiculous. Tilly, in particular, is a fright playing the ditzy bimbo. And Marsden positively froths at the mouth.
Kinksi is robotic as Sophia, and Redgrave is just wasted as Mama.
And the two-parter is also loaded with some extremely violent, bloody scenes.
If the story of "Bella Mafia" sounds at all interesting to you, don't waste your time on the miniseres - buy the book.