Tagarchief: Gangster Films

R.I.P. Big Pussy Bonpensiero

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Vincent Pastore, the Italian-American actor from New York who played the legendary Salvatore ‘Big Pussy’ Bonpensiero in The Sopranos, has died. He was 80 years old.

Pastore was a former club owner in New Rochelle, New York. He became friends with Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon – two of his regulars – who convinced him to try acting. He was in his forties when he got into the business. He died with nearly 200 film credits to his name (including Flodder in Amerika!).

In 1990, he had a small role in GoodFellas (credited as ‘Man with Coatrack’), one of the greatest gangster films ever made. That year marked the start of the decade of the mob movie, and Pastore appeared in many of them: State of Grace, New Jack City, Carlito’s Way, Sugar Hill, Gotti, The Last Don, A Brooklyn State of Mind, and Witness to the Mob.

In 1999, he was cast in The Sopranos as Big Pussy Bonpensiero, one of Tony Soprano’s crew members. His character’s name was based on a real gangster, apparently – something show creator David Chase had picked up somewhere. In fact, there were two Pussys in the mob: Big Pussy and Little Pussy. This became one of the big mob jokes in the pilot episode:

HESH: I hear Junior wants to whack Pussy Bonpensiero?
TONY: Pussy Malanga.
HESH: Oh, Little Pussy?
TONY: Yeah, Little Pussy. What, you think he’s gonna fuck with Big Pussy? My Pussy?

In the first season, Big Pussy became one of the leading characters. Then, in episode 11, Tony is told by a corrupt cop on his payroll that Pussy is a rat. A heartbroken Tony tells his soldier Paulie to go and check, and after a tense confrontation, Pussy flees.

Later that season, Tony suspects the cop was actually referring to Jimmy Altieri, another “fat fuck with black hair”, and Jimmy is killed on Tony’s orders. Pussy is exonerated, but he remains on the run, fearing his friends want to whack him.

When season one became a phenomenal success, fans wondered what happened to Pussy. David Chase realized he had to bring him back for season two. And so Pussy returns – only for us to quickly discover he’s working with the FBI to get Tony indicted. The way Tony eventually discovers this, and deals with it, leads to my favorite moment in The Sopranos in my favorite television episode of all time, from any show.

He would always remain famous for this role. I remember him coming on the ‘Talking Sopranos’ podcast, telling the story of how he took his grandchildren to the zoo and people recognized him: “Hey, it’s Pussy!”

So, 26 years after his fictional death in Funhouse, now Pussy has joined Tony (James Gandolfini) and Paulie (Tony Sirico) in Tony’s heaven crew.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Read some of Big Pussy’s best lines on The Sopranos here.

Dungeon Classics #46: Bound

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Bound (1996, USA)

Director: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Cast: Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano
Running Time: 109 mins.

Extremely tense and entertaining crime movie by the brothers (now sisters) who brought us The Matrix three years later. The movie kind of plays like a male fantasy. Two pretty girls called Violet and Corky meet on the elevator of an apartment building and make eye contact. Violet lives there with her Mafia boyfriend Caesar and Corky has just been released from jail and works in the building as a handygirl. Soon after, Violet starts seducing Corky. After some hot and steamy sex, they cook up the plan to steal two million dollars from Caesar. This is the start of a tense and bloody rollercoaster ride. Bound is kind of like the Wachowski’s Reservoir Dogs. It is their debut and mostly plays at one location – an apartment building – and is all the more exciting for it. After the set-up in the first half, the second half is a true edge-of-your-seat thriller. With lots of great twists and turns. It is not hard to spot the camerawork and visual touches that the Wachowski’s would later employ for the Matrix-films. The cast, consisting mostly of the central three leads, all portray believable and interesting characters. Pantoliano is hilarious in his mobster role (almost exactly his role in The Sopranos from years later) and Tilly and Gershon have some real chemistry going. If only the Wachowski’s could make a film like this every year.

Dungeon Classics #45: Eastern Promises

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Eastern Promises (2007, UK, Canada, USA)

Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Running Time: 100 mins.

The master of body horror David Cronenberg made an outing in the gangster genre with A History of Violence, one of the surprise hits of 2005. I guess he liked it, because he soon followed it up with another gangster movie called Eastern Promises, once again starring Viggo Mortensen. A young Russian girl dies in childbirth, leaving a diary found by nurse Anna (Naomi Watts), who wants to return the baby to its family. Unable to read Russian, Anna seeks help and meets Semyon, a restaurant owner and leader of the brutal Russian mob Vory v Zakone. His enforcers – Kirill (Vincent Cassel), a violent, closeted homosexual, and Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), a cunning newcomer – compete for Semyon’s approval. The diary reveals the girl was one of Semyon’s prostitutes, her life story unfolding in voice-over as the film’s central thread. The casting of non-Russians in the leading roles turns out very well. Mortensen speaks Russian like a pro. The details of the reality the filmmakers created are also spot-on: the underworld body tattoos that tell a person’s life story, the folk music, the accents, it is all very well executed. A few scenes stand out: Nikolai’s initiation ritual and a brutal fight in a bathhouse most notably. The characters are also beautifully realized, especially Cassel’s Kirill. You can feel the tension rise as his father swaps Nikolai for Kirill like he swaps a Ukrainian girl for a case of cheap booze. The cast and crew’s craftsmanship make Eastern Promises another small masterpiece by Cronenberg.

Dungeon Classics #44: A History of Violence

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

A History of Violence (2005, USA, Germany)

Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris
Running Time: 96 mins.

David Cronenberg, the master of body horror, has long been fascinated by duality and fractured identities – most brilliantly explored in Dead Ringers (1988). In A History of Violence, adapted from a graphic novel, family man Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) reassures his young daughter that monsters don’t exist. Yet, as fate would have it, two real monsters arrive in their quiet town of Millbrook, Indiana, intent on another murderous spree. Tom stops them, but the media frenzy that follows draws the attention of gangsters who expose his dark past as a Philadelphia mob enforcer. Meanwhile, Tom’s sharp-witted son outsmarts an alpha male schoolyard bully, sparking a reflection on humanity’s violent, primal nature – our constant lust for power and sex. This realization weighs heavily on the son, who soon finds himself drawn into the violent legacy of the man his father once was. The ‘history’ in the title is richly layered: Tom’s hidden past, the family’s shared burden, and, quite literally, a story steeped in bloodshed. The film boasts a stellar cast, with William Hurt delivering a standout performance as Tom’s weirdo brother, Richie. It’s a history worth uncovering.