BEFORE: I spent today catching up on television - spending 5 days in San Diego meant that my DVR was near its capacity, and I had 2 weeks of "Jeopardy!" and "Late Show with David Letterman" to watch, plus a week of "The Daily Show", episodes of "Last Comic Standing", "America's Got Talent", plus all the silly TV I like to speed through, like "Wife Swap", "24-Hour Restaurant Battle", "Chopped", "Chefs vs. City", "Man vs. Food", "Dinner: Impossible" and "Kid in a Candy Store". Essentially, if a show is a food-based reality show or challenge, I'm there. I'm really looking forward to August, because it seems like all the new and premiering shows are outside of my comfort zone (except for "Rescue Me", "Futurama" and "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations"), and hopefully this will give me a shot at catching up on the TV I've stored on tape since March, which includes a lot of "Law & Order", "CSI", "Simpsons", "Family Guy", "Kitchen Nightmares", and "Smallville". I wasted some time today watching a ridiculous History Channel show called "Apocalypse Island", which I'll discuss further after watching the movie "2012".
Tonight it's another film about the Mafia, which is silly, since as we all know, no such organization exists.
THE PLOT: The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime...
AFTER: This film shows the early days of organized crime, and suggests that it wasn't as organized as you might think - since all the various bosses were usually trying to kill each other. The film is set from 1917 to 1931, depicting the bootlegging of the Prohibition era, the first attempts to infiltrate the American unions, and the formation of the "Five Families" of the mob.
Again, I'm struggling to enjoy a film where every character is a criminal. I can't wait to get back to cop films, where I feel there's (usually) a better definition of good vs. evil, and it's easier to root for a rookie cop than, say, an up and coming mobster.
This film centers on the friendship between Charles "Lucky" Luciano, played by Christian Slater (last seen in "Broken Arrow"), and Meyer Lansky, played by Patrick Dempsey (last seen in "Enchanted"). We're meant to root for this pair of thugs, not just because they're young and good-looking, but because Luciano is Italian and Meyer is Jewish, so they're progressive, and therefore somehow less evil. But the film just doesn't completely sit right with me, since it justifies and glorifies the gangster lifestyle. Racial acceptance and religious tolerance don't make up for bootlegging, murder, and other vices.
Yes, I realize that some of the best films ever made, including the "Godfather" films, feature anti-heroes like Michael Corleone...but those are deep, rich, complicated films, and this, by comparison, just seems like a shoot-em-up. There's plans within plans, and vengeance for past hits, but the motivations are still pretty simple - making money by whatever means are necessary.
Another drawback is the way the movie skips over a lot of details - we see the four main characters celebrating that they've made their first million dollars together - how? We presume it was made from illegal liquor sales, but how does one grow an illicit business, what hurdles did they have to overcome? I'm reminded of "The Untouchables", which was set in the same era, and we got to see Eliot Ness's first, unsuccessful attempts at stopping bootleggers - which made his later successes feel more deserved.
There are a few little parts that get inside the heads of these characters - explaining why Luciano avoided most romantic entanglements, and why the married Lansky preferred to stay in the background, but these moments are unfortunately few and far-between. A lot of details seem to have been glossed over here in order to bring the picture in at a neat 105 minutes. And I guess all it takes to rise to the top of organized crime is just to play rival crime-bosses off against each other. Can it really be that simple?
Also starring Richard Grieco (last seen in "A Night at the Roxbury"), Costas Mandylor, Michael Gambon (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"), Lara Flynn Boyle, F. Murray Abraham (last seen in "The Sunshine Boys"), Christopher Penn, Anthony Quinn (last seen in "Jungle Fever"), with cameos from Seymour Cassel (last seen in "Animal Factory"), and Titus Welliver (from "Lost") as Al Capone.
RATING: 6 out of 10 tommy-guns
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