ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA: EXTENDED DIRECTOR'S CUT (US/Italy - 1984/2012) Directed by Sergio Leone. Written by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, Franco Ferrini, Sergio Leone, and Stuart Kaminsky. Cast: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Louise Fletcher, Tuesday Weld, Danny Aiello, Richard Bright, James Hayden, William Forsythe, Darlanne Fluegel, Larry Rapp, Richard Foronjy, James Russo, Amy Ryder, Jennifer Connelly, Scott Tiler, Rusty Jacobs, Brian Bloom, Noah Moazezi, Adrian Curran, Mike Monetti, Mario Brega, Robert Harper, Olga Karlatos, Arnon Milchan, Frank Gio, Paul Herman. (R, 251 mins)
SPOILERS: This review assumes you've seen ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. It's probably a safe bet that we'll never see a definitive, last-word version of Sergio Leone's final masterpiece ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Known for his legendary spaghetti westerns that made Clint Eastwood an international star, Leone set out to make the ultimate gangster film and in many ways, he succeeded. Though he made some uncredited contributions to Tonino Valerii's comedic western MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973) and Damiano Damiani's semi-sequel A GENIUS, TWO FRIENDS AND AN IDIOT (1975), Leone hadn't directed a film since 1971's DUCK, YOU SUCKER!, aka A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE, and he spent the better part of the 1970s prepping ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, based on Harry Grey's novel The Hoods. The rights to The Hoods were initially purchased by DARK SHADOWS creator Dan Curtis, who was nursing ambitions of breaking out of TV horror and making a name for himself on the big screen. Leone desperately wanted the rights to Grey's book, prompting his then-producer Alberto Grimaldi to cut a deal that saw Curtis signing over the film rights to The Hoods to Grimaldi and Leone in exchange for Grimaldi ghost-producing Curtis' 1976 film BURNT OFFERINGS. With the rights secured, Leone and a committee of screenwriters (among them frequent Dario Argento collaborator Franco Ferrini) began work on his vision of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, though it ultimately didn't begin shooting until June 1982. By that time, Grimaldi was no longer in the picture and Leone finally got the project going through Israeli producer Arnon Milchan, who was just making a name for himself by producing Martin Scorsese's THE KING OF COMEDY (1983) and would eventually go on to form his Regency Enterprises production company and become a major Hollywood player, bankrolling films like Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), Michael Mann's HEAT (1995), David Fincher's FIGHT CLUB (1999), and Steve McQueen's 12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013).
Sergio Leone (1929-1989)
Shooting wrapped in April 1983 and Leone spent over a year editing the footage. His initial, very rough cut ran around ten hours. He cut it down to six, and eventually down to 269 minutes. Still not satisfied, his official version screened at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, with a running time of 229 minutes. While the film and its majestic Ennio Morricone score were lauded at Cannes--but not winning any awards as it was screened out of competition--US distributor The Ladd Company, a division of Warner Bros., had already decided American audiences weren't seeing the 229-minute cut. Against Leone's wishes (Milchan, then new to the ways of Hollywood, has admitted "I should've fought harder"), The Ladd Company had assigned in-house editor Zach Staenberg to completely recut the film, jettisoning the vital flashback structure and putting the scenes in chronological order. Under orders from his bosses, Staenberg (often dismissively referred to by Leone fans and co-star James Woods as "the guy who edited POLICE ACADEMY," but he did go on to win an Oscar for his work on THE MATRIX, and in his defense, he was just doing what he was told to do) took Leone's film from 229 minutes down to 139 minutes, and that was the version released in US theaters on June 1, 1984. Needless to say, it was a disaster critically and commercially, with Ladd/Warner yanking it from theaters after two weeks following a barrage of negative press from major film critics who just saw the superior long version at Cannes less than a month earlier. Eventually, The Ladd Company relented and gave Leone's cut a very limited release (at 227 minutes, more on that in a bit) before it debuted on VHS and cable in 1985, but by then, the damage was done. Leone was heartbroken over the treatment given to his dream project in the US, and his health began to rapidly decline. The stress of the arduous shoot and the resulting massacre in the editing room took years off of his life, and he died in 1989 at just 59, looking at least a decade older. ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA was his final film.
Leone and his cast at Cannes in 1984
In the US, the long version went from 227 minutes back to Leone's "official" 229 minutes over the years, reinstating some snipped shots from a pair of rape scenes--one with Robert De Niro and Tuesday Weld, and an especially graphic one with De Niro and Elizabeth McGovern--that were trimmed so the long version could secure an R rating. The 139-minute version, released on VHS and shown on cable in the mid '80s, is now rightfully regarded as one of the most shameful instances of a studio cluelessly destroying a filmmaker's vision. It's since been buried in the Warner vaults, presumably never to be seen again, though it would be interesting to view again for curiosity's sake. Even in its "official" 229-minute form, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA leaves questions unanswered. Given the argument that the 1968 portions of the film are a dream being experienced by Jewish mobster Noodles (De Niro) in an opium den in 1933, it's possible that clarity was never meant to be had with the film. Perhaps it's hazy and incomplete by design. That still doesn't explain other mysteries of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, like the significance of Frankie Minaldi (Joe Pesci) turning up in the lobby of a hospital long after his portion of the story is over, unseen by Noodles and Max as they get off an elevator and never seen or referenced in the film again, unless something in Leone's earlier rough cuts showed that he has a role in the ill-conceived Federal Reserve robbery that proves to be the gang's undoing or he's an unseen power player pulling the strings of union leader Jimmy O'Donnell (Treat Williams). As unwieldy and wandering as dreams can often be, there will never be definitive answers for a lot of what happens in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, much like there can never be a definitive version. No matter how much gets put back in, the enigmatic elements remain. We're watching--presumably--the dreaming, drugged-out mind of a man consumed by guilt, who's just ratted on his friends and inadvertently gotten them killed. It's never going to make perfect sense.
The 251-minute restoration has been marketed as an "extended director's cut," but Leone's original pre-release version ran 269 minutes before he settled on the 229-minute Cannes 1984 cut. With Martin Scorsese throwing his weight behind the project, the restoration involved Leone's family members and various collaborators, though 18 minutes of footage was apparently tangled in rights issues and it would seem that the 251-minute version finds the film once again released in a compromised state (perhaps the real explanation is that the still-missing 18 minutes aren't salvageable?). Whether that full 269-minute version will ever see reassembly is still up in the air. The six additional scenes came from a workprint source, and when the "director's cut" played at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and was released on Blu-ray in Italy later that year, the image quality didn't win it any praise. It's been cleaned up significantly in the ensuing two years, but the added scenes still stick out like a sore thumb. Some look better than others, especially later on, but the first addition--Noodles encountering a cemetery director (Louise Fletcher, who was completely excised from all previous versions) when he visits the mausoleum where Max (Woods), Cockeye (William Forsythe), and Patsy (James Hayden, who died of a heroin overdose in November 1983, eight months before the film's release) are interred--looks the worst, by far. Faded and scratchy, it's hard to imagine what this looked like before it was cleaned up, but Fletcher's scene is usually cited as the most famous of the "lost" sequences, even though she doesn't really have much to do. Other than a few minutes of screen time for the ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST Best Actress Oscar winner, the biggest significance of this scene comes near its end when Noodles spots a black car that's following him, giving him more evidence that after a 35-year self-imposed exile, the ghosts of his past have finally caught up to him. Of the five other restored scenes--including a heated 1968 meeting between Max-as-"Secretary Bailey" and O'Donnell, Noodles getting defensive when a Jewish chauffeur (played by Milchan) disapproves of his lifestyle, and an additional scene after Noodles drives the car into the water after the gang pulls off the Detroit diamond robbery for Frankie and his brother Joe (Burt Young)--the most important gives us a much more thorough introduction to Eve (Darlanne Fluegel), Noodles' girlfriend in 1933, a prostitute with whom he took up after his brutal rape of love-of-his-life Deborah (McGovern), finally driving her away for good. In the 229-minute cut, Eve more or less appears and we can easily figure out that she's Noodles' girlfriend, and we didn't really need background on her to ascertain that, but by reinstating their introduction, the viewer gets a better read on their relationship and how Noodles still isn't over Deborah.
All of the scenes explain things in some way, but given the inherently enigmatic and impenetrable nature of the film and its construction, less can be more. Not less as in "139 minutes," but nothing in these additional 22 minutes makes ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA necessarily better, nor do they make anything worse. It's also a different Blu-ray transfer than Warner's previous release of the 229-minute cut, darker and with a more muted color palette. There are moments where it doesn't look all that great, and there's been chatter online--which I don't really buy--that the whole transfer was degraded to more closely match the inferior quality of the added scenes. While devoted fans of Leone and the film will want to see this cut, I'm not sure it surpasses the 229-minute version, which had a pretty good if not demo-quality HD transfer. At any rate, it's not a "director's cut." It's a big step toward the restoration of the 269-minute cut, but Leone more or less dismissed that as a definitive edition when he cut it down to 229 minutes and signed off on it. Maybe his feelings changed before his death and maybe he'd prefer the 269-minute version now and be cool with settling for this 251-minute cut instead, but he's not here to speak for himself, and much like the intricacies and the specifics of the film's deliberately ambiguous plot, we'll simply never know.
The two-disc edition of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA: EXTENDED DIRECTOR'S CUT lists "theatrical cut" as the second disc. This is not the 139-minute US theatrical cut--it's simply the 229-minute "official" version that you probably already own if you're a fan. While everyone is likely in agreement that the 139-minute Zach Staenberg cut is an abomination, it would be interesting to watch, much like Universal's botched, shelved "Love Conquers All" cut that Criterion included in their BRAZIL box set. Why not include it for the sake of completist fans? Don't bury it. Don't deny its existence. Present it as a cautionary tale of studio meddling gone horribly awry. Hell, get Staenberg to do a commentary over it. Can you imagine the stories he's got about hapless execs telling him to make those nonsensical cuts and re-edits? That's a missed opportunity. Fortunately, if you already have the 229-minute version, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA: EXTENDED DIRECTOR'S CUT is also available on its own in a single-disc edition on both Blu-ray and DVD.
Treat Williams, William Forsythe, James Woods, and Robert De Niro
at the New York Film Festival screening of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA:
EXTENDED DIRECTOR'S CUT in September 2014.
Directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Written by J.H. Wyman. Cast: Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper, Terrence Howard, Isabelle Huppert, F. Murray Abraham, Armand Assante, Franky G, Luis Da Silva, Jr., Roy James Wilson, Jr., James Biberi. (R, 116 mins)
DEAD MAN DOWN is the Hollywood debut of Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev, reuniting with his GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO star Noomi Rapace. On the surface, it's a conventional mob/revenge thriller and the script by FRINGE writer/co-executive producer J.H. Wyman is frequently silly, but DEAD MAN DOWN is compelling and stylish throughout, bolstered by strong performances and Oplev bringing an offbeat sensibility and unexpected elements to some largely familiar proceedings.
Colin Farrell is Victor, a Hungarian enforcer who's part of the crew of NYC mobster Alphonse Hoyt (Terrence Howard). For months, someone's been offing Alphonse's guys and sending him cryptic handwritten messages accompanied by puzzle pieces of a photograph. He's got everyone on high alert after the latest member of his crew to be killed is found crammed into a freezer in the basement of his home. Victor is a dutiful soldier--he's relatively new but earns Alphonse's trust by saving his life during a drug den shootout with some turf rivals that Alphonse mistakenly blames for the killings--but lacks the ambition of his friend Darcy (Dominic Cooper), also a relatively new face but one who really wants to work his way up in the organization now that he's a husband and father. Loner Victor has no one except Beatrice (Rapace), a scarred young woman who lives with her mostly-deaf mother (Isabelle Huppert) in the neighboring high-rise and with whom Victor shares frequent nods and waves while both are looking out of their windows. Darcy senses great pain in Victor's past, but doesn't press the issue, instead passing on something his wife once told him: "Whatever it is, even the most damaged hearts can heal."
25-year-old Beatrice is still recovering from reconstructive surgery after her face was shattered a year earlier when she was hit by a drunk driver. She works up the courage to slip a card into Victor's mailbox with her phone number, and the two go out to dinner. But then Beatrice drops the bomb: she's got cell phone footage of Victor killing a man in his apartment--the guy stuffed into Alphonse's freezer--and she won't go to the cops if Victor agrees to kill the drunk driver who disfigured her. Victor reluctantly agrees but has other things on his plate: namely--and this isn't a spoiler--he's the guy killing Alphonse's goons and sending the notes and puzzle pieces, and he's been doing the same thing with a rival Albanian crime organization in an attempt to turn them both against each other as part of an elaborate revenge plot.
Oplev and Wyman fuse numerous genres and styles throughout: the film is equal parts noir, Hitchcock, chilly Scandinavian gloom, early 1990s Luc Besson, and vintage Abel Ferrara grit. Maybe it's the notion of a foreign filmmaker's take on NYC (most of this was shot in Philadelphia), but much of DEAD MAN DOWN reminded me of Besson's THE PROFESSIONAL (1994), another film that succeeds despite its many inherently absurd elements. Stripped to its barebones, the basic vengeance storyline is nothing new, but elsewhere, the film journeys down other, less predictable avenues. The tentative, baby steps relationship that Victor and Beatrice embark upon is very nicely-played by both Farrell and Rapace and suprisingly appealing in its own strange way, with added help from Huppert as the merrily oblivious mom who keeps trying to play matchmaker while looking for her hearing aids and badgering Victor into taking some cookies home with him (Beatrice puts some of her mom's lemon chicken in Victor's sparse fridge in one scene, leading to this odd bit of dialogue: "I'll just wedge it in here between the mustard and the plastic explosive").
DEAD MAN DOWN isn't the kind of film that's going to generate much business at the box office and, like THE PROFESSIONAL, it's being met by critics with general indifference at best to outright scorn at worst. But THE PROFESSIONAL has come to be regarded as a classic of sorts, and while I'm not saying DEAD MAN DOWN will be held in that same high esteem, I did find it highly entertaining and with enough off-kilter quirks and peculiarities to keep my interest, and it's the kind of film that will prove endlessly rewatchable during its long future life as a cable and Netflix streaming staple. There's also small supporting turns by reliable character aces like F. Murray Abraham and Armand Assante, an elaborately ludicrous sniper sequence, and one insane bit with an SUV driving into a house and down into the basement. It's not a film that's meant to be taken too seriously and it might even fall under "guilty pleasure," but I liked how Oplev presents a standard-issue revenge flick in non-standard ways, focusing on the actors and the performances and giving the characters room to grow and be established. Not everything in DEAD MAN DOWN works--Darcy is meant to be a conscience or beacon of some sort for Victor, but the character is mostly intrusive, relegated to annoying Victor by sucking up to Alphonse and doing some detective work that threatens to derail Victor's entire plan--and some might find the villain's comeuppance too abrupt, but the story ultimately isn't about that. It's more about two very damaged people dealt some extraordinarily shitty cards and finding a very strange--and incredibly violent--path to healing.
Directed by Fisher Stevens. Written by Noah Haidle. Cast: Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, Julianna Margulies, Mark Margolis, Lucy Punch, Vanessa Ferlito, Addison Timlin, Craig Sheffer, Katheryn Winnick, Weronika Rosati. (R, 94 mins)
There's a famous Gene Siskel quote where the legendary film critic said that one of the criteria in his reviewing a movie was "Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?" That's not to say that STAND UP GUYS is a bad movie, because it's not. And in all fairness, most movies released these days aren't as interesting as the notion of sitting in on Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin kicking back and bullshitting over a meal together. While STAND UP GUYS offers some laughs and some drama and a chance to see three living legends doing what they do, the film seems fully cognizant of its ability to just coast through 90 minutes without really making much of an effort, because with 72-year-old Pacino, 69-year-old Walken, and 78-year-old Arkin onboard for approximately 140 combined years of movie experience, 90% of the work is pretty much done. Seeing these guys onscreen together is an absolute joy for any serious film fan. It's too bad they weren't given much to work with other than essentially being GRUMPY OLD GOODFELLAS and Pacino walking around with a giant hard-on after scarfing down a fistful of boner pills.
When mid-level mobster Val (Pacino) is released from prison, his best buddy Doc (Walken) is there to pick him up. Val served 28 years, taking the fall for a botched job that resulted in the death of the son of powerful and bizarrely-nicknamed mob boss Claphands (Mark Margolis). Claphands gives the long-retired Doc 24 hours to kill Val. Val knows it's coming and the conflicted Doc decides to take him out for one last party. The pair visit a brothel, break into a pharmacy to steal some Viagra, go back to the brothel, steal a car, bust their old emphysema-stricken wheelman Hirsch (Arkin) out of a nursing home, and take on the lowlifes who own the stolen car and gang-raped a young prostitute (Vanessa Ferlito). All the while, the clock's ticking and Doc, under increasing pressure from Claphands and his goons, has until 10:00 am to whack Val and can't bring himself to do it.
Pacino and Walken work so well together that they make it easy to overlook the deficiencies of Noah Haidle's script. Both do their distinct "Pacino" and "Walken" routines while admirably not overdoing it. Pacino avoids his "Hoo-aah!" histrionics and Walken is nicely subdued as the quiet Doc, who spends his days painting and watching "the cable TV" (which, like most things, is awesome when said by Christopher Walken), and visiting an all-night restaurant where he's befriended a sweet graveyard-shift server (Addison Timlin). Walken is given the film's most interesting character and underplays it quite well, looking appropriately weathered and worn-down after a long life nickel-and-diming it as a blue-collar working stiff gangster (these guys were probably friends of Eddie Coyle). STAND UP GUYS focuses primarily on the relationship between Val and Doc, and Arkin really gets shortchanged in what basically amounts to an extended cameo. His Hirsch doesn't even turn up until halfway through and even then, he doesn't really prominently figure in before a highly implausible departure that doesn't make a whole lot of sense (Julianna Margulies has a couple of scenes as Hirsch's daughter, and she's given even less to do).
STAND UP GUYS, which expanded this week after opening on one screen in New York and Los Angeles for a week in December 2012 to qualify for the Oscars (that was hardly a necessary maneuver, Lionsgate), has a lot of quiet and introspective moments that really work but just as many silly elements that don't, and as a result, it struggles to find a consistent tone. Arkin is a national treasure, but even he can't sell the idea of his character hooked to an oxygen tank gasping for breath in one scene, and leading the cops on a wild chase in the next before going to a brothel and fulfilling his lifelong dream of "two women at the same time." Old guys doing young guy things can be funny, like Kirk Douglas in a Red Hot Chili Peppers mosh pit in 1986's somewhat similar TOUGH GUYS, but STAND UP GUYS too often panders to the lowest common denominator by going for the cheap "geezers being vulgar" laughs, and a dazed Pacino pitching a tent in his pants is about on the level of Burgess Meredith talking about "taking the skin boat to Tuna Town!" in GRUMPY OLD MEN. But with these guys working together, Haidle and director Fisher Stevens clearly realize that most of their work is done for them. It's really hard to dislike the admittedly slight and forgettable STAND UP GUYS, but one still wishes it exerted itself just a little and gave these still-vital gentlemen something a little more substantive.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer. Written by Will Beall. Cast: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Pena, Mireille Enos, Sullivan Stapleton, Holt McCallany, Troy Garity, Jon Polito, Jack McGee, John Aylward, Josh Pence. (R, 111 mins)
Delayed by several months for reshoots after removing a sequence involving a shootout in a movie theater out of respect for the victims of the Aurora, CO shootings at a midnight showing of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES last summer, GANGSTER SQUAD finds itself in the big-studio dumping ground of early January. Adapted from Paul Lieberman's non-fiction chronicle of covert cops taking on the mob in post-war L.A., the film, written by Will Beale (CASTLE), and directed by Ruben Fleischer (ZOMBIELAND), is sufficiently entertaining in a brainless kind of way, but it feels lacking, like it could've--and should've--been more. Fleischer, with two comedies to his credit (he also made 10 MINUTES OR LESS), might not have been the best choice to direct, as the film has a sometimes awkward time straddling the line between serious and camp and never coming down on either side. It threatens to become a spoof on several occasions, and not all of the actors seem to be on the same page with what the project should be.
When ruthless east-coast mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, whose fake nose is currently the frontrunner for 2014's Best Supporting Actor Oscar) takes over the L.A. crime scene with a good chunk of the cops and judges in his pocket, frustrated police chief Parker (a grumblier-than-usual Nick Nolte) talks honest but hot-headed detective and war hero John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) into organizing a secret, off-the-books team of elite cops to take down Cohen's empire by any means necessary. Still shattered by his experiences in WWII, O'Mara is now only at home in combat-type situations, which immediately brands him an outsider with the powers that be at the L.A.P.D. Likewise, he assembles, with the help of his devoted and pregnant wife Connie (Mireille Enos of TV's THE KILLING), a ragtag team of misfit cops for whom the rules are optional: reckless ladies' man Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), knife-throwing beat cop Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), wily old cowboy Max Kennard (Robert Patrick), methodical surveillance man Conway Keeler (a surprisingly calm Giovanni Ribisi), and eager Navidad Ramirez (Michael Pena), who joins essentially because Kennard vouches for him and no one else wants to be partnered with him because of his ethnicity.
GANGSTER SQUAD is never dull and, from the standpoint of its production design, looks terrific. The problem is that the film's tone is just all over the place, both in terms of script and style. Several action sequences, particularly a car chase, are dampened by the modern--and entirely too ubiquitous--reliance on blur-inducing shaky-cam and too much CGI (the explosions in this film are embarrassing). Performance-wise, Brolin plays it completely straight and is very good as the driven, obsessed O'Mara, but Gosling never seems comfortable in this period setting, and his glib, flippant character doesn't seem like a 1949 type. The other members of the Gangster Squad don't really get much room to shine but Patrick seems to enjoy playing a grizzled, big-moustachioed old-school lawman who never really blended in with the fancy ways of the big city. The show-stealer, however, is a completely over-the-top, borderline grotesque Penn, who plays Cohen as a foaming-at-the-mouth madman who's introduced having an underling's hands and feet tied to the bumpers of two cars facing opposite directions and subsequently ripped in half. Penn is one of cinema's great actors, but he's rarely cut loose and hammed it up to this degree (even his Spicoli from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH wasn't played this broadly). Penn has clearly been instructed to turn it up to 11 and play to the back rows, and he's obviously having a blast. But therein lies the conundrum of GANGSTER SQUAD: Penn is entertaining as hell here, but his performance is so much that he's more funny than threatening. The three leads don't seem to be acting in the same movie: Brolin acts like he's in the next L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, Penn acts like he's in a live-action Looney Tunes, and Gosling acts like he's arriving fashionably late for a gangster-themed GQ spread. And poor Emma Stone, charming as usual, is stuck with a woefully underwritten character as Grace, Cohen's reluctant moll who, naturally, falls for Jerry, which also reunites the two actors from 2011's CRAZY STUPID LOVE.
GANGSTER SQUAD borrows elements from several better films, from the underrated MULHOLLAND FALLS (1996) to the great L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997), but most of all, it seems especially indebted to Brian De Palma's THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), in its premise, some vaguely Morricone-esque music cues, the chief villain having an ominously creepy right-hand man (Troy Garity's one-eyed Wrevock is a bland stand-in for Billy Drago's Frank Nitti), and a finale that shares a few visual elements (minus a runaway stroller), like a long set of steps. There's a great story to be told here but, in the hands of Fleischer, it struggles to find a consistent tone and feels at times like it's an adaptation of a lighthearted graphic novel instead of a true crime account as Beale's script leaves no cliche unused (approximately how many badges do you suppose are at the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water, hurled in disgust by disillusioned cops fed up with the criminal-coddling system?). By no means is GANGSTER SQUAD a bad film and it's very often an entertaining one. But it's also an uneven and sometimes frustratingly empty one that seems content to cruise by, squandering its potential to sit alongside the films it's so openly emulating.
Directed by John Hillcoat. Written by Nick Cave. Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Jason Clarke, Dane DeHaan, Noah Taylor, Lew Temple, Bill Camp, Tim Tolin. (R, 116 mins)
Director John Hillcoat and musician/screenwriter Nick Cave previously collaborated on the viscerally brutal 2006 western THE PROPOSITION and reunite for this adaptation of Matt Bondurant's novel The Wettest County in the World. Bondurant's book was loosely based on the Prohibition-era bootlegging experiences of his grandfather Jack and his two great-uncles Howard and Forrest Bondurant, who ran a major moonshine operation in Franklin County, Virginia. LAWLESS has a lot of the same grim, stomach-turning violence that made THE PROPOSITION so memorable, but as a whole, it's not quite as good. It wants to be a 1930s gangster version of THE PROPOSITION, but it has commercial obligations to fulfill, and it's not as well-constructed, with a propensity for corny one-liners and implausible characterization, and a villain who's ultimately too over-the-top for his own good. It's certainly an entertaining film, but it often feels like its issues stemmed more from the editing and not the writing. THE PROPOSITION was a great film, while LAWLESS is merely a good one.
Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf as
two of the Bondurant brothers
In 1930-31 Franklin County, the moonshining Bondurant brothers--Howard (Jason Clarke), the oldest; Forrest (Tom Hardy), the middle brother and the leader/brains of the operation; and Jack (Shia LaBeouf), the youngest and most eager to make his mark--are doing well until the local prosecutor brings in Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), a Chicago-based "Special Deputy" who's not there to clean up the operation, merely to help himself and the prosecutor profit from it. They want their cut and the Bondurants aren't going to budge. In between the war with the corrupt lawmen, Forrest gets involved with Maggie (Jessica Chastain), a former Chicago dance-hall girl who needed to get away to a quiet life and lands a job at the Bondurants' general store, and Jack courts local Amish girl Bertha (Mia Wasikowska). One of the film's biggest problems is the paper-thin characterization of the women. Yes, it's a film about men and their guns, but whether by Cave's scripting or the assembling of the film, Maggie and Bertha are both very ill-defined and not very believable. Wasikowska, especially, is saddled with a character that just never seems real: the flirty, sassy Amish girl "who always had a rebellious streak in her," according to Jack.
Guy Pearce as the evil Charlie Rakes
Hardy's performance is strange but effective. He plays Forrest as a very quiet, withdrawn type who's prone to bursts of savage violence when pushed, and he seems a lot like Nick Nolte, but with more grunting. LaBeouf, who often comes off as, well, a total douche both onscreen and off, does some of his best work and it's a case of Hillcoat using LaBeouf's persona and/or limitations to the film's advantage. Jack is a cocky, inexperienced, and occasionally arrogant whippersnapper who often seems in over his head, and LaBeouf embodies that perfectly. It's similar to how everyone said Josh Hartnett was too bland a leading man for THE BLACK DAHLIA, when in fact, it as an inspired move by Brian De Palma where the character's flaws and weaknesses matched the audience's perception of the actor (Hartnett's casting was one of the few successful things about that film). I haven't been a fan of LaBeouf in the past, but with LAWLESS and his recent casting in Lars Von Trier's next project, he seems to be taking steps toward being Taken Seriously, and he does a very solid, credible job here. Gary Oldman has a small role as dapper big-city mobster Floyd Banner, who forms an uneasy alliance with Jack when it means taking on Rakes. Which brings us to Guy Pearce as Charlie Rakes. With his jet-black hair slicked back and his eyebrows shaved, sporting a bow-tie and dress gloves, too much cologne, and a broad Chicago accent through pursed lips, the prissy, sneering Rakes gives Pearce the kind of despicable, over-the-top bad guy that actors love to sink their teeth into. Make no mistake, Pearce makes Rakes a memorably sadistic villain, but ultimately, it's the kind of villain that doesn't really belong in this movie, and by the end, he's too much of a cartoon, spouting the kind of snarky one-liners that seem more akin to a blockbuster action movie than a 1930s period piece. This doesn't make it a bad movie, but no matter how much fun Pearce is to watch here--and he is a blast--these issues keep it from rising to the level of THE PROPOSITION. I guess it's an issue of finding the right tone and staying consistent, and neither Hillcoat nor Cave are as disciplined on this project as they were on their last one.
Gary Oldman as big-time gangster Floyd Banner
THE PROPOSITION is known for its often shocking violence, and Hillcoat and Cave certainly maintain consistency in that area. Whether it's Jack getting a savage beating from Rakes, or various throat slicings, bullets through flesh, shovels to the head, or Rakes getting a gift-wrapped package containing the severed testicles of one of his flunkies, LAWLESS has no shortage of wince-inducing violence and gore. Also returning from the previous Hillcoat/Cave collaboration is cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, who brings the same kind of visually stunning beauty to drab, dusty surroundings, with the imagery matched perfectly to the rustic score by Cave and Warren Ellis, with vocal contributions from Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and Mark Lanegan. LAWLESS is not without problems, and it falls short of being a new classic of gangster cinema, but it's well-made, looks great, has good performances, and is much better than most of the studio product that normally gets dumped in theaters around Labor Day.
KING OF NEW YORK
(Italy/US - 1990) Directed by Abel Ferrara. Written by Nicholas St. John. Cast: Christopher Walken, Larry Fishburne, David Caruso, Victor Argo, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Janet Julian, Joey Chin, Paul Calderon, Steve Buscemi, Theresa Randle, Roger Smith. 106 mins. R
The 1990s began with a period of fierce productivity and widespread acclaim for indie NYC bad boy Abel Ferrara, but by 1999, his career was virtually in ruins and his films had routinely extensive shelf time before getting dumped on video. With KING OF NEW YORK's release in 1990 and with BAD LIEUTENANT in 1992, Ferrara established himself as a unique voice in independent film just when the Tarantino/indie auteur explosion was happening. But Ferrara is rarely grouped among the same movement, possibly because he's older and had a journeyman career that began in early 1970s porn. KING OF NEW YORK has acquired a cult following over the last 20 years and resonated somewhat in rap culture, though not to the degree of Brian De Palma's SCARFACE. That's likely because, despite its commercial storyline, it's an odd, eccentric film, and that's due as much to Ferrara's style as it is to Christopher Walken delivering one of his most "Christopher Walken" performances.
Just released from prison, drug lord Frank White (Walken) sets up his operation at the Plaza Hotel with plans to go legit and fund a children's hospital, but not before wiping out the competition. There's a bizarre, sometimes dreamlike feel to the opening half hour, but the film settles into a groove with the introduction of three NYC detectives obsessed with shutting Frank down: weary, rumpled, chain-smoking Roy Bishop (Victor Argo) and his two hotheaded partners, Gilley (David Caruso) and Flanigan (Wesley Snipes). Unable to play it by the book as Bishop demands, Gilley and Flanigan use their own time to go after Frank and his thug crew, led by the fast-talking enforcer Jimmy Jump (Laurence Fishburne, when he still went by "Larry") with disastrous results in a long, stunning chase sequence in a driving rain.
As good as Walken is here, whether he's gunning down rivals, jawing with the three cops, or busting a move to Schoolly D's "Saturday Night," the performance that's always stuck with me is Victor Argo as Bishop. Argo, who died in 2004, was a veteran character actor of stage, screen, and TV who was a regular fixture in several Ferrara films as well as many of his friend Harvey Keitel. Argo rarely got a chance to play major roles in films, and despite his fourth billing, he's actually the second lead in KING OF NEW YORK. Argo does a lot of acting without saying much and you just see the fatigue in his face and hear it in his gruff voice, even when someone else is doing most of the talking.
Argo perfectly embodies a rage that's turned to burnout, and he's almost matched by a pair of intense performances from Caruso and Snipes, when they were hungry young actors and long before they succumbed to self-parody (Caruso) and general apathy (Snipes). Years before Caruso's breakthrough on NYPD BLUE and even before KING OF NEW YORK, Ferrara used him as the Mercutio stand-in "Mercury" in CHINA GIRL, his largely forgotten 1987 modern-day, NYC street gang ROMEO & JULIET update. Snipes was coming off a breakout role as Willie Mays Hays in MAJOR LEAGUE and was a year away from his star-making turn as Nino Brown in NEW JACK CITY. Aside from an occasional BLADE outing, Snipes has spent the better part of the last decade or more doing bad straight-to-DVD timewasters, though he did deliver a strong supporting performance in 2009's underrated BROOKLYN'S FINEST before his highly publicized incarceration for income tax evasion. With all of Caruso's now-comedic Horatio Caine tics on CSI: MIAMI, and Snipes' personal and professional implosion, it's fascinating to go back 20 years and see them in KING OF NEW YORK. As silly as CSI: MIAMI is, Caruso at least seems to be enjoying himself, but it's interesting to see that distinct intensity before it became a punchline. And once he gets his life together, Snipes is an actor who's still capable of great work when he cares.
Ferrara stayed busy throughout the '90s, going on to make BAD LIEUTENANT (1992), DANGEROUS GAME (1993), the major-studio remake BODY SNATCHERS (also 1993), the offbeat vampire film THE ADDICTION (1995), and reunited with Walken for 1996's THE FUNERAL and 1999's NEW ROSE HOTEL. By the time the unwatchable NEW ROSE HOTEL came around, Ferrara had all but lost his momentum: THE BLACKOUT was released in 2001 after four years on the shelf, and 2002's 'R XMAS was a pale retread of past glories. The religious drama MARY (with Juliette Binoche, Matthew Modine, and Forest Whitaker), made in 2005, had a brief one-week run in L.A. in 2008 and still hasn't received a DVD or Blu-ray release, and the comedy GO GO TALES (with Modine, Willem Dafoe, and Bob Hoskins) made in 2007, played at film festivals and a couple of special event screenings, but has yet to receive an official US theatrical or home video release. Ferrara's most recent work to released in the US was 2009's CHELSEA ON THE ROCKS, a rambling documentary about NYC's Chelsea Hotel. A long-planned KING OF NEW YORK prequel with Michael Pitt as a young Frank White never made it past pre-production, and the latest Ferrara news is that he's planning a film based on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal. Going back to his early efforts like 1979's THE DRILLER KILLER, 1981's MS. 45, and 1984's scuzzy masterpiece FEAR CITY, Ferrara has been a hellraising cinema maverick of the highest order, but somewhere in the late' 90s, after THE FUNERAL, he simply lost his way and has yet to recover. KING OF NEW YORK, a truly one-of-a-kind gangster film and one of the last chances to see old-school Times Square on film in all its glory before it was cleaned up, is the perfect place to witness the beginning of prime Ferrara. Here's hoping there's more to come.
