New Mob Movie Shooting In The Fall Has Pittsburgh Ties
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- 'The Mob Priest' is the next big movie coming to Pittsburgh.
"When you choose a project, you are also looking for the uniqueness of what you are going to be in and this had a different twist on a story on how guys interact from different worlds," actor Robert Davi said.
Davi plays a decorated Vietnam vet who, after the war, came home to serve as priest in the toughest neighborhoods.
His parish is home to mob boss Johnny -- played by Tom Sizemore -- who says he identified with his character the first time he read the script.
"It speaks to me, that there is a human element to it that I can understand," Sizemore said. "The part? An actor has to know what he can do, what he can't do and when I read this part I thought this is something I can excel at."
The story is written by Gavin Rapp, a Central Catholic grad. It's co-directed by another Pittsburgher, Ron Hankison -- and stars Kenny Champion of Penn Hills.
"In Pittsburgh, that was the nucleus of those towns and when that started everything started to go from there," Champion said. "I think that's where you got a lot of the idea of the script from that."
Don't be surprised if you sense an under-current of the recent turmoil within the Catholic Church.
"I think of it in terms of a crisis that's happening in a religious institution and sometimes an extraordinary crisis requires extraordinary measures," says Hankison.
Shooting starts in September -- with the entire production being shot here in Pittsburgh.
"We are going to shoot in a lot of inner-city areas and in a lot of churches that are on the out," Rapp said.
The cast and crew expect to take six weeks to shoot the mob priest.
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