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Kevin Jordan is all of 32 years old and this is his fifth movie. He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School for the Arts, where he won a Martin Scorsese Young Filmmaker Scholarship. His first film, the 1999 movie, "Goats on Fire and Smiling Fish," was presented by Martin Scorsese, who again presents this film. Scorsese must like the talent that he sees in Jordan. Well, I do too.

This is a pretty impressive start for such a young man and more than reason enough to cut this fine effort a little slack, especially since this movie was shot on a miniscule budget of well under one million dollars. Far too many directors and producers today couldn't do nearly as well with ten or 20 times that amount of money.

I strongly disagree with this film's paltry rating of only 43% on the RottenTomatoes.com web site. I found this movie to be very entertaining as well as being a heartwarming examination of a family in crisis. The portraits are so well painted that each character comes to life. They are all different and yet they all more or less grudgingly stick together because they are, well, like family.

Another delight is that the minor characters in this film also become real people, instead of just cardboard caricatures. The emotional dynamics of running a small business are all here. Frank Giorgio is a tough and demanding boss with a sometimes fiery temper and yet you can see that all of his employees love him. They have all seen his tempers flare up before and no doubt they will see him blow his top again.

It's a testament to Frank Giorgio's character that his employees have stayed with him for a long time through thick and thin, and that the men with whom he does business all respect him. Frank's business has always been a wholesale lobster supply company to New York City's Fulton Street Fish Market, although he is now trying to expand into the restaurant trade.

Bill Lau (Henry Yuk) owns one of the wholesale seafood businesses to which Frank delivers fresh lobsters. He remarks to Frank's son, Michael, that Frank is his "favorite person who isn't Chinese." Later Bill will have another chance to evidence how deep his friendship is.

You get a sense of community throughout this film. Those in it are loyal, if demanding, and those not in it, like the "white-bread" parents and relations of Michael's girlfriend, Kerry Miller (Heather Burns), look at this close knit family with their code of conduct and old world honor and they are left clueless, perturbed or worse.

I also give a lot of credit to Danny Aiello and Jane Curtin, as both of them must have worked for far less than their usual salary to get this film "in the can" for that small amount of money.

For this movie Jordan reaches back to his family roots since his family happens to own and operate the Jordan Lobster Dock located in Brooklyn at 3165 Harkness Avenue (718-885-2086). The story is to some extent, perhaps a large extent, biographical since his family experienced similar problems and their business was also founded in 1938 as was the fictional Giorgio's Lobster Farm in this movie.

Michael Giorgio flies back to his family home in Brooklyn with his girlfriend, Kerry Miller, only to find both the family and his dad's business in disarray.

His mother, Maureen, has moved out of the family home above the lobster business into her daughter's home. Her daughter, Lauren Giorgio-Wallace (Marisa Ryan) and her husband, Justin Wallace (Ian Kahn) both love Maureen, but find that her presence is cramping their style with their need for intimacy and the demands of caring for their new baby.

Maureen, ever the good sport that she is, makes plans to move into a small place of her own. It's not that she doesn't love her husband, Frank, but she has come to realize that all that they have ever had between them is lobsters, and she is sick to death of being around lobsters 24/7. Frank is all business all of the time and Maureen is more than a little bored since all he ever wants to talk about is business. In short, she wants a new life of her own.

Shortly before Mike's arrival back home the two man crew of the Giorgio lobster boat crushed the sea water intake pipes while backing into the dock and now Frank has to figure out a way to keep all of the valuable lobsters alive so that he can sell them to his clients at the Fulton Street Fish Market in New York City.

Of greater concern to him is the fact that the bank that he had gone to for a loan to build a seafood restaurant adjacent to the lobster business has folded and now the FDIC has come after him for the money to pay off the loan. He doesn't have the money as he has already sunk it into the restaurant, which has yet to open. He apparently doesn't have the cash flow necessary to allow him to go to another bank for a bridge loan to cover the first loan.

Frank has worked out a deal with Justin, his son-in-law, to buy the bank note on the cheap at the court-appointed FDIC auction. To make sure that there are no other competing bidders, Frank places the auction notice in the "Pet Section," for, as he explains to the judge, lobsters can be considered to be pets... That excuse worked the first time, but Frank won't be able to use it again after being admonished by the judge for not acting in good faith.

Mike had worked enough for his gruff dad when he was younger to know that he does not want to spend his life around either his dad or lobsters. In fact, he doesn't even eat lobsters. He fled all the way across the continent to Seattle where he works as a internet consultant and web designer. His girlfriend, Kerry, is also from Brooklyn, and Mike hopes that the occasion of his return visit will allow for the announcement of their engagement.

Like the cry at the start of the Disney World "Pirates of the Caribbean" exhibit, which goes, "Ahoy, Matey, there be rough seas ahead," Mike runs into more problems just as soon as he sets foot back home. Frank desperately needs his help for at least the next six months. The business has been effectively shut down just before the Christmas dining season because of the broken pipes. His mother and his dad have just separated.

Finally, Maureen looks at his engagement ring for Kerry and finds it to be wanting. Meanwhile, Kerry's white-bread parents are snobs and barely tolerate Mike even though he brings them fresh lobsters. And they make it clear that the rest of the highly ethnic Giorgio family is beyond the pale.
Where they may be useful is the fact that Kerry has a rich uncle who is a venture capitalist, and maybe he will provide the financing necessary to allow the restaurant to open.

I quote from another famous movie where Betty Davis proclaims, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!" And it will be for all of the Giorgios. But somehow we all know that everything will eventually come out all right for this close knit and very loving family.

A movie review by Carl Zapffe (05/03/06)