The Rat Pack (1998) Reviews

Shot in 33 days, this $9.6 million biographical drama of behind-the-scenes interactions within the Rat Pack group of Frank Sinatra (Ray Liotta), Dean Martin (Joe Mantegna), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Don Cheadle) is set against the political backdrop of the '60s, establishing links of singers, gangsters, actors, and politicans (sometimes brushing shoulders in the same rooms). The film also explores Sinatra's relationship with John F. Kennedy (William Peterson). Deciding to support Kennedy, Sinatra patches up his feud with Peter Lawford (Angus Macfadyen), since Lawford's wife, Pat (Phyllis Lyons) is JFK's sister -- and a Sinatra-Kennedy friendship soon follows. However, when Joe Kennedy (Dan O'Herlihy) decides Sinatra's nightclub, mob and commie connections are a no-no for JFK, the patriarch's interference angers Sinatra. Meanwhile, Sammy Davis Jr. enters into an interracial liaison with May Britt (Megan Dodds), and the dynamics of the situation are visualized in an imaginative musical fantasy sequence in which Davis sees himself singing and dancing for an unresponsive line of white supremacists. Broadway's Savion Glover stepped in with the film's choreography. Substitute singers featured the voice of Michael Dees for Sinatra and Mantegna duplicating Dino. Also covered here are the events that led to the filming of Ocean's Eleven (1960). For an actual Rat Pack stage performance, see The Rat Pack Captured (1965). Filmed in LA, the TV movie premiered August 22, 1998 on HBO. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi