Preview of Prizzi's Honor Summary:

The near-infinite ability we have for deluding ourselves is a thematic strand never far below the surface of Prizzi's Honor. Time and time again, people go to the most extraordinary lengths to convince themselves that the obvious will not happen: The mystical significance of blood ties is invoked as a means of shutting out the knowledge that relatives are untrustworthy; children are loved so irrationally that their unchecked impulses threaten their parents' survival; lovers are so desperately desired that even the chance of murder seems a small price to pay for their favors. Condon's conception of the almost endless malleability of human nature has here been amended to include the self as one of the major causative factors in delusional thinking and behavior. If this is somewhat less paranoid than The Manchurian Candidate's (1959) focus upon our susceptibility to external coercion, it is still a deeply pessimistic view of...