If you can overlook Andie MacDowell’s Mitteleuropa accent as a Jewish Holocaust survivor (I know: big if), the cinematic roman a clef “Mighty Fine” has some quiet charms.
In the 1970s, a Jewish Brooklyn shmatte king named Joe Fine — and here we have that acclaimed son of Zion, Chazz Palminteri — moves his adolescent daughters to Louisiana to be closer to his clothes factory. The business is going bust, though, which may account for Joe’s slight rage issues: a driving lesson with the elder daughter concludes with him trying to run the girl over, and he breaks up a kids’ pool party with a rifle.
There isn’t much here but a childlike sense of love for bad-tempered daddies, and the climactic poem that the younger daughter writes about the old man falls flat. Moreover, the film doesn’t have a third act, simply excusing itself at the 75-minute point. But together with the boisterously charismatic Palminteri, writer-director Debbie Goodstein-Rosenfeld has created an intriguing old bastard who, in a moment worthy of “The Great Santini,” challenges his older daughter’s suitor to an arm-wrestling match while badgering him: “You’ll never disrespect my daughter, right?” Right, sir!