"Do I ice her? Do I marry her?"'
—Charley Partanna
Prizzi's Honor is a 1985 film based on a 1982 novel by Richard Condon. Directed by John Huston, the film stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia, and Anjelica Huston, who won an Academy Award for her performance.
Charley Partanna (Nicholson) is a hit-man for the Prizzi crime family. One day, at a wedding, he meets Irene Walker (Turner), who's also a hit-woman. Charley inadvertently kills her husband, and after a courtship, he marries her. However, Irene has been keeping money her late ex-husband stole from the mob. The Prizzis then hire the two of them to take out each other. But neither knows the other's true identity.
This work features examples of:
- Cop Killer Manhunt: While the police are normally totally in the pocket of the mafia, after a policeman's wife is killed during a hit, they call off their special arrangement until the killer is turned in or killed.
- Do You Want to Copulate?: When Charley, reeling after finding out what Irene does for a living (as well as the fact she was married to a guy Charley killed, and has stolen money from the family), goes to visit Maerose, Maerose asks him point-blank, "You want to do it?...Let's do it."Charley: With all the lights on?
Maerose: Yeah. Right here. On the Oriental. With all the lights on. - Even Evil Has Standards: Irene tosses out a baby (actually a doll) to distract a bodyguard as she goes for her gun. He ignores it and goes for his gun. Irene is not happy:"I can't get over it. What kinda creep wouldn't catch a baby? If it was real it coulda been crippled for life."
- Evil Old Folks: Don Corrado.
- Hey, Catch!: The Baby Doll distraction. Subverted as it doesn't work.
- Idiot Hero: Charley isn't the brightest bulb in the box.
- In Love with the Mark: A two-sided version!
- Living with the Villain: Irene and Charley.
- Pretty Little Headshots: During the kidnapping attempt, a well-dressed woman, who turns out to be the wife of the Police Commissioner, inadvertently walks out of an elevator into the middle of the fracas. She only has time to remark, "I must have the wrong floor" before Irene shoots her in the center of her forehead, leaving a neat, bloodless hole as the woman's body topples backward.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Charley and Irene's final confrontation ends in this. Her shot misses, his knife doesn't.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Charley throws his knife straight into Irene's neck in the climax.
- The Unfavorite: Dominic Prizzi. Whether he's a Jerkass because of this or vice versa remains to be seen.
- The Vamp: Maerose, who can be quite the Manipulative Bitch if needs be.
