
Stuyvesant Town resident Ben van Bergen has penned the screenplay for the film which Tom Nonnon is producing. (Photo by Sabina Mollot)
By Sabina Mollot
Two Stuyvesant Town actors whose credits include parts for policemen and priests, can now add mobsters to their resumes, this time as producer and writer of a film about two wise guys on the run from a dirty debt they can’t pay.
Longtime neighbors Tom Nonnon (producer) and Ben van Bergen (who wrote the screenplay) spent the past year working on the bare-bones budget flick, a dark comedy called “Mob Fathers: Permanent Rehab.”
The story focuses on two career criminals who end up owing $200,000 to a foreign loan shark.
“So,” said van Bergen, “they have to find a place to hide.” The pair then decide to hide out in a church, only to discover that the priests there have their own problems — specifically gambling debts. The two lead characters, Jack and Mack, think they’re just disguising themselves as clergy men, but end up finding themselves in an unexpected role.
“They still have to earn and in doing so, they go to people who are really bad and give those people a chance — change your ways or die,” said van Bergen.
He added that the film will be different from others in the mafia movie genre in that the story is dialogue-driven, centered more around the friendship between the two men than the expected whack-a-mole type violence. (Though there is definitely some of that.)