THE STORY

An aging Brooklyn mob boss summons his nephew Robert Monte, a Wall Street whiz kid who has been shielded from the “Family” business. The Don solicits a promise that if anything happens to him, Robert will steer his wiseguy crew legit so that they will not spend the rest of their lives in jail. Robert surrenders a reluctant promise. When his uncle dies suddenly, Robert transforms the mob social club into a real estate office and struggles to navigate the mob crew into legitimate careers. Meanwhile, a gorgeous FBI agent named Julie Capp works feverishly to build RICO indictments against Robert and his crew who just can’t help reverting to their old-school hoodlum ways. In the scramble, Robert and Julie find themselves fiercely attracted to one another. Will these star crossed lovers find romance? Will Robert succeed in steering his crew legit? Will Julie’s RICO indictments fall?

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

“Before the Bernie Madoff scandal and the bailout of AIG we had this idea to make a movie about the thin line between Wall Street and Mob Street,” says screenwriter Denis Hamill, about the genesis of Under New Management. “I’d known plenty of wise guys and Wall Street guys from covering stories over the years for my column at the New York Daily News. Problem was, I was finding it harder and harder to distinguish between the Gotti brothers and Lehman Brothers. I didn’t see a whole lot of difference between a yuppie gambling with derivatives on Wall Street and a wiseguy taking book in Bensonhurst. The only difference between a robber baron and the mafia don was that one was legal and the other wasn’t.”

So Hamill penned a movie treatment about a yuppie named Robert Montello who as a boy lost his hoodlum father in a mob hit. Robert’s heartbroken mother never recovered and soon followed her husband into the grave. Before she died, she secured a promise from Robert’s mobster uncle, Don Vincenzo Montello, that Robert would never be raised in “The Life.”

Don Montello made good on that promise and had the boy’s name changed from Montello to Monte. He was sent away from Brooklyn to a boarding school in New England. Don Montello and his Brooklyn wise guy “family” paid to send the son of their beloved slain boss through Harvard Business School and Harvard Law.

After graduating, Robert’s became a rising star on Wall Street. An eligible bachelor, with enough money to live comfortably for life, Robert also has a social conscience and feels a need to give back to the less fortunate in this society that has been so good to him. He plans to take his legal and business skills to New Orleans to help those voiceless people who have never quite recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

But before he departs, Uncle Vincenzo Montello summons Robert to his social club near the Brooklyn waterfront. Uncle V is getting old. His health is failing. He takes nitro glycerin for his heart. Flomax for his prostate. Lopressor for his blood pressure. Lipitor for his cholesterol.

On top of that he needs a tranquilizer for the stress caused by news that the FBI is working overtime to bring down RICO indictments on his entire crew. Don Montello loves his hapless guys. But he’s afraid that if he dies they’ll all wind up doing life sentences or being rubbed out by ambitious younger wise guys.

Don Montello tells Robert that he needs a favor in return for all that he and his guys have done for him over the years. “If anything happens to me, I want you to make my guys legit,” Don Montello says.

Robert is stunned. Flustered, he tells his uncle that it’s a little late to teach these old school hoods how to go legit. But Uncle V persists and finally secures a reluctant promise from Robert, who fully expects his uncle to live another fifteen years.

Uncle V dies that night when the party girl his guys have hired as his birthday gift gives him a Viagra pill which, when mixed with his nitro, sends him into cardiac arrest.

Suddenly Robert Monte, a 30-something Wall Street yuppie, finds himself in charge of an aging Brooklyn mob crew that he’s promised to turn legitimate.

Robert starts by transforming the social club into a real estate office and re-training his racketeers as realtors.

At that same time, gorgeous FBI Special Agent Julie Capp is busy wire-tapping the social club and building a RICO case against the entire Montello crew. Including their dashing new boss named Robert Monte.

But when Robert and Julie cross paths sparks fly. These two star-crossed lovers find themselves wooing one another from opposite sides of the law as Robert tries to steer his guys legit while Julie tries to steer them into jail.

With the treatment written, the funding for Under New Management started falling into place when the project came to the attention of Rory J. Cutaia, an Italian American lawyer/businessman from Manhattan. Cutaia could identify with the Robert character because he knew a thing or two about the law and Wall Street, having left the practice of law for the world of high stakes business to create and sell a major telecommunications company for some $200 million.

“I thought Under New Management was a great modern day Romeo and Juliet romance,” says Cutaia. “But instead of a tragedy, it was a very funny, “feel good” movie. It also had some important, prescient things to say about the intersection of corporate America and organized crime, and through the main character Robert, the many positive contributions of today’s generation of Americans of Italian descent. This wasn’t a typical low-brow gangster film. I could see this would be a film with a lot of heart, humor and intelligence that would find broad appeal. I have always loved the movies and welcomed a challenge, so I got involved.”

As one of the primary investors and a producer in the project, Cutaia commissioned Denis Hamill to pen the screenplay. With a tight budget they searched for a young, upcoming director who would see this as his break-out film. Through Hamill’s agency, ICM, the script got to Joe Otting, a Chicago-based director who had been a contestant in HBO’s Project Greenlight series.

“I thought the script had just the right balance of urban grit, colorful characters, humor and romance all rolled into a story that was about something,” says Otting. “I wanted to get involved with this project and was eager to give it an elegant look that befitted the main characters. I also wanted the City of New York, from light to shadow, high brow and low brow, like the characters in the story, to be a character in the film.”

Denis Hamill’s brother, Brian, who had worked as a still photographer on over 75 major motion pictures, including 30 Woody Allen movies, was also on board as a producer. Brian used his contacts of working with the best actors in the business over the years to help Otting cast the movie with meticulous care. “I knew that with our limited budget that we couldn’t attract major stars,” Brian said. “But we all agreed that we wouldn’t settle for anything less than the absolute best affordable actors for every single one of the 49 speaking parts in the movie. Casting this picture just right would give it the verisimilitude it needed to make an audience buy into our New York fable.”

Casting Chris Diamantopoulos as Robert Monte was a crucial decision. This multi talented rising star -- who will soon appear on Broadway in the revival of Gershwin’s “Girl Crazy”, and in a season long arc of the hit Fox TV series “24” -- set the perfect tone of tough and endearing for the film.

The chemistry between Chris and our beautiful leading lady, Kelly Overton, a Shakespearean trained actress who had starred on Broadway in “The Graduate,” and various independent films, was instant. “We knew we had our Romeo and Juliet,” says Brian Hamill. “Everyone else was cast around them.”

Casting veteran New York actors such as Richard Portnow, Johnny “Roastbeef” Williams, Tony Ray Rossi, Fred Dennis, Joe Tabbenella, and George Louros as the Brooklyn mob crew gave the film the Brooklyn street cred it would need. Adding noted actors like Dylan Baker and Joe Grifasi bolstered an outstanding cast.

With veteran independent producer Jeff Mazzola in charge of production, Under New Management was shot on 35 mm film by acclaimed cinematographer Pete Biagi over six weeks on location in Brooklyn’s DUMBO and various locations in Manhattan. A post card to New York City, this independent film that shines like a studio production presents colorful characters, crackling dialogue, high energy action sequences, lots of laughs, an edgy romance and music by The Kinks, Patsy Klein, Ray Charles, Etta James and others.

Under New Management is that rare feel-good movie that will make you laugh, touch your heart, and make you believe in second chances.