Mobsters (1991)

MobstersThe worst part about being a young gangster is that no one takes your ice pick serious until it's too late.Luckily, the nextgen in this action movie have brains and bullets.When a fresh-faced Lucky Luciano (Christian Slater) meets youthful Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey) the two, along with Bugsy Siegel (Richard Grieco) and Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor), make a name for themselves in the bootlegging racket.Over time, the gangster squad seizes control of NYC from the old bosses and divides it between the five main families.But can this new crime regime keep from crumbling under its own infighting?Overly violent and under acted, this loose interpretation of the upper echelon of the underworld's top brass fails to live up to its lofty ambitions.Incidentally, this film reinforces that the only way to get ahead in this world is to mow the older generation down with Tommy guns.Red Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.com

Poor Christian Slater! He tries hard, but the script sucks and he's got a supporting cast that ranges from insufferably dull (Richard Grieco) to manic scenechomper (Michael Gambon & Anthony Quinn, frantically vying with each other to see who can eat the most scenery in the least amount of time).The good: The cast, particularly Costas Mandylor, looks damned fine in the period suits. Also, Patrick Dempsey would eventually grow into his voice, face, and body and join the cast of "Grey's Anatomy." Unfortunately, this movie took place many years before that would happen. Christian Slater is not awful in this film.The bad: Lara Flynn Boyle, the general dialogue, the editing, Richard Grieco (in his "Booker" days, I was a fan!), the script, the story.The hilarious: Occasionally, Anthony Quinn. In addition to eating scenery, he was rarely in a scene in which he wasn't eating a meal, having a snack, gnawing on a table leg ... at one point I thought he'd start gnawing on Slater's shoulder, just to have something to chew on.Rent "The Godfather" if you want to see a great film. This is what a film SHOULDN'T be.

I'm sorry, I really tried to like this movie but it just was rather pointless.Yes, it's the dramatization of the real-life rise to power of some of the most successful criminals in US history, however, the writers seemed to want to cram as much of their lives into as little time as possible. For instance, in one scene we see Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky in a car that is then shot at by a hit-man. 5-10 minutes later in the film, they are all sitting in a room, talking about this incident with the hit-man...obviously some great deal of time has passed but this was a little confusing at first.Perhaps if they had stretched the movie out another hour or so, they could have built up the characters some more, including the villains. When Christian Slater has his friends throw the don out the window, he says it is revenge for ruining his father. The ruining of his father took oh about 45 seconds of screen-time at the very beginning of the film.I suppose the point is that there was no point to this film. It tried to show the intrigue of the organized crime gangs of the 20's and 30's and it tried to portray the rise of Bugsy Siegel, Lansky, Costello, and Luciano as well as be an action/drama/love story. It came up flat in all areas.Christian Slater...his fake accent was pretty annoying as well. Luciano was born in Sicili and would not have spoken with such an accent anyway.The Godfather, this was not. Goodfellas, this was not. I like movies about the Mafia like anyone else but this was just weak.

I recently watched this movie again after seeing once about 10 years ago. At the time, I thought the movie was pretty bad, but decided to give it another shot after a friend commented that he liked it. So, I watched the flick again and this time is was beyond awful that I don't know where to start. The acting is beyond awful and Christian Slater practically sleep walks through this. The movie also does a horrible job of letting us know how much time has gone by from scene to scene. We're treated to one of the worst montages that shows the "crew" rising, but have no idea what year it is. I also has a problem with the commission meeting with Masera. I mean, what was Mad Dog Cole doing there? I thought these ceremonies were for only made men, but apparently hit men and thugs are also welcome. Aside from that, the script looks like it was hastlily put together as some of the dialogue particularly the Rothstein characters lines are crap.I can't see how anyone could like this movie. The movie is a travesty and if viewers are interested in other films of that era they would be much wiser to check out Billy Bathgate, Bugsy, & Once Upon a Time in America.