There's a good reason why Mambo Italiano has been dubbed My Big Fat Gay Italian Wedding: it's a shameless rip-off of Nia Vardalos' smash-hit 2002 ethnic comedy.
When Angelo (Luke Kirby) comes out of the closet and tells his parents that he's gay, there's big trouble in Little Italy. They don't care that he's found a nice Italian boy (Peter Miller) to have a bada-fling with: they just want their son to be as straight as uncooked spaghetti. After all, what would the neighbourhood think if they knew he was playing `hide the salami' with another bloke?
Lots of creaky Italian stereotypes plug the gaps in Emile Gaudreault's brightly coloured farce as Angelo's parents (Paul Sorvino, Ginette Reno) scream and shout, make spaghetti sauce and generally over-egg the Mediterranean melodramatics. The hit-and-miss gags occasionally strike lucky, but the formulaic feelgood begins to grate long before `I Will Survive' plays over the credits.
