Cheap Witness Protection (DVD) (Richard Pearce) Price

Bobby Batton (Tom Sizemore) is a middle-class father and family man who just happens to make his living as a mobster. After surviving a midnight attempt on his life in his own home, he packs up and hustles his family off to a motel, where he tries to figure out who wants him dead. The FBI offers him a choice: face prison time on previous indictments, or turn state's evidence and enter the Witness Protection Program. The family soon finds itself in an interim facility run by the agency, a sterile apartment with all the personality of a hotel suite, trying to leave their past behind and make the adjustment to new lives and new identities. Batton's family is about as "normal" as a mobster's family could be, but things soon begin to fall apart under the strain of their situation. The reliable Sizemore and costar Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio are both good in their roles, as is Forest Whitaker as a sympathetic federal official, but they never quite rise above the shopworn story. To the screenwriter's credit, Batton's character has some real depth; on the surface, he's a fairly unsympathetic figure, a slimy mob type who's made his living as a professional criminal. When things are turned upside down, though, he shows himself to actually care about his family and struggle to make things work out. That aside, though, this is still a fairly average made-for-cable drama, with a cast making the best of an uncompelling screenplay and flat direction. --Jerry Renshaw

CATEGORY:	DVD
DIRECTOR:	Richard Pearce
THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE:	11 December, 1999
MANUFACTURER:	Hbo Studios
MPAA RATING:	R (Restricted)
FEATURES:	Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby
TYPE:	Feature Film-drama
MEDIA:	DVD
# OF MEDIA:	1
UPC:	026359170324