It makes no sense for Carolina, a young mob wife hiding from the mob, to stay with her father in Coney Island, work at a busy restaurant in the middle of the fairgrounds, and attend college in Manhattan – essentially living the life of a typical college student.

 

Short of getting a job as a news anchor on prime-time television, it is hard to imagine a job with more exposure than waiting on tables in Coney Island. Even if the mob did not have a major presence at the fairground in the 1950s (which they very likely did), working at a busy restaurant not far from Manhattan/New Jersey while on the lam is not something a real mob wife would do in a million years.

 

The supposed explanation is that Carolina has no one to turn to save for her father, so she moves in with him. In need of a job, she finds something local. Carolina ought to be safe with her father, as the mob is under the false impression that the two are not on taking terms. This is nonsense. Anyone with a superficial familiarity with the mob world knows the parents’ residence is the worst possible hiding place. Even in the fictionalized world of this film, the mob’s knowledge of the father/daughter fallout does not hinder them from paying a visit to the father’s workplace. Given the stakes (literally life and death) no real mob wife would ever risk hiding at a parent’s place.

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The film’s credibility is further undermined when the mobsters visiting the father’s workplace act more like IRS agents than mafiosos. Reprising their roles as Paulie and Bobby of The Sopranos, the two henchmen question Carolina’s father and stepmother at the father’s workplace. Not even bothering to peak around at the father’s residence, they content themselves with a few relatively polite inquiries, all their street smarts escaping them as they fall for one blatant lie after another. Nothing could be further from how such matters were dealt with in The Sopranos.

 

To cap it all, the film loses all credibility when the family shows no sign of alarm after the visit from the mob. Life continues as before.