BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ray Liotta plays Frank Sinatra in HBO's The Rat Pack, 9 p.m. Saturday.
(HBO photo)
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We had high hopes. Yes, we had high hopes. We had high apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes.
Then we watched HBO's new movie, The Rat Pack.
We were expecting a rollicking fun flick about Frank Sinatra and his ultra-cool "rats," entertainers Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop.
What we saw was just another TV movie about John F. Kennedy's mistresses and mob connections.
Pry me from these goons!
We wanted to see the lovable rogues drink, smoke, womanize and tear up the town filming Ocean's Eleven.
We wanted to hear "Nice 'N' Easy," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Young at Heart," "Chicago," "Love and Marriage" or "Witchcraft." It's such an ancient pitch, this tale about how mobster Sam "Momo" Giancana helped labor unions elect the nation's first Roman Catholic president in 1960.
We should have smelled a rat in HBO's pack, the movie credits listing John F. Kennedy before Joey Bishop.
Judith Campbell, the president's mistress with connections to Mr. Giancana, had more screen time than Ava Gardner, Mr. Sinatra's long-time flame.
We wanted guys and dolls, not another conspiracy theory.
"I saw it in terms of a Greek tragedy, in that Sinatra was undone by the very things that Kennedy, for example, needed him to do," Rat Pack director Rob Cohen explained.
We craved insights to Robin & The Seven Hoods, not parallels to Sophocles.
According to screenwriter Kario Salem's "authorized" script (based on published accounts, not from buying someone's story rights), Mr. Giancana interceded in the 1960 campaign as a personal favor to Mr. Sinatra, at the request of Joseph Kennedy, the candidate's father.
After the election, the singer was cut off from the White House by the president's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
"Frank, as the leading character in this drama, did not get what he wanted, and worked so hard to achieve," Mr. Cohen said.
In other words, fairy tales can't come true, if it can happen to Francis Albert Sinatra.
"I think the expectation of the film is going to be singing, dancing and (sex) in the Sands Hotel," Mr. Cohen said. "There's a lot of that in the film."
Not so fast, chicky baby.
We counted only eight songs in the movie, and two were backdrops for newspaper headline montages. Everyone will be disappointed, not just those who listen to Mr. Sinatra's songs night and day, day and night.
As for Ray Liotta, well, he's not the one. The actor (GoodFellas) looks more like a Toledo truck driver than the Chairman of the Board. He's too tall, too heavy, too bland.
Ol' Blue Eyes isn't back.
We were warned about him, too, come to think of it. When TV critics asked Mr. Liotta to compare himself to the late singer last month, the actor replied: "I'm from Jersey. I've got blue eyes. It's close enough."
Not quite. We've got these guys under our skin, so deep in our hearts, that Mr. Liotta, Joe Mantegna and Don Cheadle always will be strangers in the night, exchanging glances.
What were the chances? We had such high hopes.
But Dino didn't have that 1970s curly perm worn by Mr. Mantegna. And the Sam Man was much shorter than the others, though Mr. Cheadle did an admirable job learning to tap dance for the role.
And then there's The Voice, and the other voices.
Professional sound-alikes Michael Dees (Sinatra), Warren Wiebe (Martin) and Gunnar Madsen (Davis) were perfect matches for the singers -- but not for the actors, resulting in some jarring moments when they burst into song.
Ooops, there goes another bad vocal dub.
Mr. Cohen's direction was uninspired, starting with the cliched opening scene of the film. Mr. Sinatra was sipping bourbon backstage before a 1970s concert when he blurts out: "I miss my guys." The rest of the story was told as a two-hour flashback.
Later Mr. Cohen zoomed in on Mr. Davis' Adam's apple to make sure we saw the gold Star of David around his neck. Hey, man, nice 'n' easy does it!
Yes, we had high hopes. Such high hopes.
We thought The Rat Pack would be a gas. All we got were fumes.
:John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV - radio critic. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
