Spike of Bensonhurst is a 1988 American comedy drama mafia film written and directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Sasha Mitchell.

While living in Red Hook, Spike continues to train with Bandana at the local gym and begins a relationship with India.

"[4] In response to claims that the movie "is generated mostly out of broad stereotypes" of Italians and Puerto Ricans, Ebert wrote, "I do not think the filmmakers or the actors had any racist intents.

"[4] His colleague, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, had a completely different reaction, giving it 2 out of 4 stars, and calling it "a weak imitation of Saturday Night Fever with Italian family conflicts substituting for John Travolta's dancing.

[6] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote the film "has to buck the truth that comedies about Italian-Americans and the Mafia are beginning to wear a bit thin.

Newcomer Mitchell is a breezy charmer; Borgnine is fresh and canny in a jewel of a portrayal; Anne DeSalvo is a likeably smart cookie as Baldo’s wife, and Antonia Rey practically walks off with the movie as an exuberant Puerto Rican mother.

"[7] Eleanor Ringel of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it "a real dog of a movie, a strutting exercise in style-over- substance that’s so tickled by its own jokes that you can almost hear it giggling at itself from off-camera.

"[8] Desmond Ryan of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that it "walks the same neighborhood as Moonstruck, but its estimation of honor and honesty in contemporary American life is strictly out of Prizzi's Honor; its motto could come from John Huston's caustic look at the Cosa Nostra, in which a capo gives this warmhearted praise for hit-woman Kathleen Turner: 'She's an American.

"[11] However, Michael Sragow of the San Francisco Examiner said that it "fails to stretch a blase manner into a satirical point of view.

Now and then, one of the performers breaks out of the movie's mode of low-key archness, like Anne De Salvo (who plays the don's wife), an indestructible comedian who can't help creating an outsize character even when only a caricature is called for.

In Spike of Bensonhurst, however, if the cast starts to rouse some energy, schmaltz and raucous humor, the director is sure to squelch it with a wilting piece of parody and then to put it all on cruise control.

Peter Goddard of The Toronto Star called the film "funnier than Married To The Mob, spunkier than Rocky, [and] more happily off-the-wall than Moonstruck", adding that it was " the sweetest satire of the season—one so funny you needn't always laugh at it.

"[15] In Australia, where the film was released under the title of The Mafia Kid and went directly to video, Bill Halliwell of The Age wrote that "even though the story set-ups are as predictable as the mob cliches, [it] turns out to be nonetheless enjoyable thanks to a quick, inventive script by director Paul Morrissey and co-writer Alan Browne.