The success of La cage aux folles (1978) preoccupies some of those who make gay-oriented films. A second recurring theme involves parents visiting their grown-up children who have yet not disclosed that they are gay. Friends and Family, directed by Kristen Coury, falls into both traps, with some twists, but at least has enough clever lines to redeem the many superfluous clichés that serve to keep the film out of the mainstream. Two masculine lovers, Stephen Torcelli (played by Greg Lauren) and Danny Russo (played by Christopher Gartin), are enforcers and bodyguards for a mafia boss, Victor Patrizzi (played by Tony Lo Bianco). Patrizzi’s sons (played by Danny Mastrogiorgio and Lou Carbonneau) are interested in careers in such “effeminate” lines of work as caterer and designer, though their mother Stella (played by Anna Maria Alberghetti) insists that they will be ready to run the family business when the time comes. Even worse, Patrizzi’s daughter Jenny (played by Rebecca Creskoff) announces that she is engaged to marry Matt Jennings (played by Patrick Collins), who is neither Catholic nor Italian. Nevertheless, early in the film, the lovers establish their credentials as tough guys by using strong-armed methods to force a feminine opera singer to pay his gambling debt. The plot thickens when Matt’s parents (played by Tovah Feldshuh and Brian Lane Green) are planning to go from a small town in Wisconsin to see their son’s future bride. Then, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Stephen’s mother (played by Beth Fowler) decides to give her husband (played by Frank Pelligrino) a birthday present–a trip from a small town in Indiana to New York, where she believes that her son and his lover run a catering business. Although the Torcellis know that their son is gay and coupled, Stephen fears disaster, as his mother expects a catered banquet, and his father is an undercover FBI agent who will surely arrest him along with the rest of the Patrizzi mob. Jenny then solves Stephen’s dilemma. One of her brothers will teach Stephen and Danny how to prepare a gourmet meal, and the other brother will decorate. Waiters will be some of Patrizzi’s goons. (Meanwhile, the two lovers contemplate that they have chosen their brass-knuckles profession to overcompensate for the fact that they are gay.) For entertainment, English-accented Richard Grayson (played by Edward Hibbert), a friend of Jenny and the gay couple, will educate the goons on gay film star trivia and show them how to perform a musical number, complete with swishy choreography. During the meal, the mafia boss caters to the whims of Stephen’s mother by dictating orders via a microphone up his sleeve, but he is relieved that Stephen’s father has now retired from the FBI, and even more delighted to learn that Matt was actually born in Sicily and was adopted by his Wisconsin parents. However, Matt’s parents have changed since he moved to New York; they bring along members of the local militia to take hostages and make demands in their inept pursuit of a new American revolution, thus enabling the camp production to end with a bang or two. With some editing of the comedic excesses, Friends and Family might have crossed over to the mainstream but instead will be best enjoyed by gays in a packed cinema or adapted as a stage play. MH