Movies have been spoofed by themselves since the early days of Hollywood. Every archetype of film has had a day as a victim of polite ridicule over the years from westerns, horror movies, disaster flicks, and even the big musical. Prior to the fast-moving gags of "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun", there was the film version of the Broadway farce "Hellzapoppin'" where the gags flew faster than the stuffed stork with a baby over its audiences head. Mel Brooks brought back the genre years later, spoofing Gothic horror and westerns; Even Alfred Hitchcock got a good ribbing. By the time all the former serious actors got together to show they knew how to provide a silly laugh for "Airplane!", the genre was perfected, and even to this day, just the sight of Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges in their earlier films can bring on hysterical laughter.

Fast forward two decades. After the gut-busting "Naked Gun" and "Hot Shots!" films (some better than others) came "Loaded Weapon", "Fatal Instinct" and even "Repossessed!", the disastrous spoof of "The Exorcist". Leslie Nielsen got in the custom of playing serious looking men who were actually much less serious. Between "Spy Hard" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It", even playing "Mr. Magoo", Nielsen became the King of Serious Actors turning to comedy. After all these films, the gags got sillier, some might even say tasteless, and in the case of "Jane Austen's Mafia!", just plain stupid.

O.K., so there are some moments of laughter which prevail in this rip-off movie that takes "The Godfather" to a new level of lowness. Nielsen isn't there for this entry in the genre. Lloyd Bridges, in his last film, takes on the role of the aging Mafia don whose big scene has him doing a break dance while being pelted with bullets. The story is told through the eyes of his youngest son, the obvious Michael Corleone clone (Jay Mohr) and goes back to the youthful days of Bridges' character, Vincenzo Cortino, in Italy, where his mob future becomes set in thumbs....I mean stone.

Although everybody keeps a serious face throughout, it is not easy to sit there and watch them make absolute fools of themselves, although most of them probably cried all the way to the bank. The biggest abuse goes to the phenomenal Olympia Dukakis whose flatulent matriarch (Bridges' senile mother!) barely says a word and literally gasses someone to death. Christina Applegate comes off a bit more dignified as the Diane Keaton take-off, but the remainder of the cast seems totally naive as to the Derick they are involved in which seems to be peppered with unnecessary gags and moments of insipidness that they were obviously oblivious to.

As for Bridges, I give him credit for his longevity and his speaking voice alone could add value to the dullest of anything he was in. He does get one of the funniest visual gags here concerning a slice of watermelon, but it is an absolute shame that he couldn't have ended his career with something that while lacking in dignity might have at least been a whole lot funnier than this rip-off movie that couldn't even leave "Forrest Gump" alone.

My 10/10 rating assumes that you're not actually going to bother looking at this page unless you've decided that you like "Jane Austen's Mafia!" before you've seen it (I found it pretty funny). For anyone else, it's the sort of spoof that - as many reviews said at the time - is destined to sleep with the fishes. A gag-a-minute send-up of history's most famous mafia movies, there's clearly nothing sacred to the people behind this flick; the whole Sicily sequence makes that clear (well, what can you expect from the director of "Airplane!"?). Where Leslie Nielsen seemingly would be is Lloyd Bridges (in his final role) as the aging, clumsy don.

So, in conclusion, you'll only take interest in this if you accept any kind of humor, no matter how low. But you may be hungry for Italian food after watching it. Also starring Jay Mohr, Billy Burke, Christina Applegate, Olympia Dukakis and Vincent Pastore.

And remember: soup is good!

I'm surprised I never heard of this before. It had some really funny moments. The attack goats cracked me up.