AN extremely awkward cross between “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Rain Man,” Robert Celestino’s “Yonkers Joe” is a mawkish tale of a crooked gambler who has a 17-year-old son with Down syndrome.
Chazz Palminteri is quite good as the old-school cardsharp, as is Christine Lahti playing his long-suffering girlfriend. Celestino’s gritty depiction of the war between the casinos and the cheats – unlike, say, “21” – notably avoids most of the clichés of the genre.
Unfortunately, that’s not true about Palminteri’s mentally challenged son, overplayed with an excess of tics – what “Tropic Thunder” dubbed “full retard” – by Thomas Guiry.
And Palminteri’s scheme to use his son as part of a big score to keep the young man out of a group home – well, there “Yonkers Joe” is already in the running for the most unbelievable climax of 2009.
Running time: 102 minutes. Rated R (profanity, sexual references). At the Quad, West 13th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.