What Do You Do When Your Mafia Boss Is James Caan?
Wisegal is the latest in Lifetime’s long history of movies about strong-willed women doing what they need to in order to survive. The story revolves around Patty Montanari, a widowed mother. This based-on-a-true story stars Alyssa Milano in the title roll. She plays Patty with gusto, making her strong and vulnerable, and quiet and relatable, and misunderstood all at the same time.
Patty starts selling contraband cigarettes to support her kids. Before long, her character begins a relationship with Jason Gedrick’s Frank Russo, a captain in a Brooklyn crime family. That’s right, folks, she becomes a member of the family, the mafia. What starts as a job managing a night club, quickly turns into a job as a money-courier for the mob. For while, she enjoys the life. Money and love, and being in a family, unlike anything she’s known before. But one day, it’s not enough anymore.
What happens, though, when she wants to get out, out of fear that her boys will end up involved in the mafia life, too? When your mafia boss is James Caan, the always super intimidating James Caan, it doesn’t go as easily as one might hope.
The story is a bit predictable, but at the same time there are some twists that kind of get you thinking. It’s a typical Lifetime movie in the way that it makes you really start to think about your life and whether you’d be able to do anything to help your kids survive.
Alyssa Milano, Jason Gedrick, and James Caan are all really great in the movie. It’s definitely worth a shot – check it out and let us know what you think!
Premieres Saturday, March 15 at 9 pm et/pt on Lifetime
