Tagarchief: GoodFellas

05. Casino (1995)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: Martin Scorsese (screenplay), Nicholas Pileggi (book & screenplay)
Stars: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

Imagine that you are living in the nineties and GoodFellas is your favorite movie of all time. Then its director Martin Scorsese announces a follow-up with much of the same cast and crew. This lucky occurrence happened to me.

Of course, Casino could have been a disappointment or a mere repetition of GoodFellas, but it became another mob masterpiece by the master of the genre (although he maintains Casino is not a mob movie). I fell in love with Casino in the cinema back then and now, thirty years later, I am falling in love with it all over again. I’m enjoying it even more than I ever thought possible.

Like in GoodFellas, the first hour provides a documentary style insider perspective on the mob’s Las Vegas in the seventies. The voice-overs are provided by Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein (De Niro), a professional gambler who ran the Tangiers casino for the Chicago outfit, and Nicky Santoro (Pesci), a mafia enforcer who is sent after him to watch his back. Street guys running an operation of this magnitude? It is easy to see why Marty wanted to tell this story. He loves criminal conspiracies and this is a major one.

Things go smooth for a while, but as the tagline says: ‘no one can stay at the top forever’. Rothstein, the most controlled guy on the planet, falls in love with the highly volatile showgirl Ginger McKenna and marries her. That is one gamble that will cost him dearly. Their rocky marriage is the first thing that gets out of control.

The second explosive element in the mix is Nicky, who starts his own gang in Vegas and then starts pillaging the place as if it’s the Wild West. Finally, there is also the dumbest gangster in the mob’s history – Artie Piscano – who keeps financial records of the entire operation. At the end, ten years after Rothstein moved to Vegas, the whole house of cards starts collapsing in on itself.

The casting alone makes this one of the greatest mob movies ever. De Niro, Stone and Pesci couldn’t be more perfect (one made mafia member said Pesci’s performance is the most realistic portrayal of a wise guy ever), but all the supporting characters are golden as well. I mean, where did they find all these old mob guys in the grocery store? They are just fantastic.

Add to that the incredible cinematography, editing, production design, music, the beautiful credit sequence by Saul Bass, and the most realistic and gruesome mob violence ever put on screen, I mean Scorsese really aced it once again.

06. Miller’s Crossing (1990)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Joel Coen
Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, John Turturro, Jon Polito

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

Miller’s Crossing is another great one from the prime gangster film year 1990 and second best from that year according to me and Ethan Coen, who once generously confessed that he thought GoodFellas was better.

Miller’s Crossing is stylistically based on Dashiell Hammett’s novels The Glass Key and Red Harvest and tells the story of Irish crime boss Leo O’Bannion (Albert Finney) and his gambling addicted Nr. 2 Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) who rule over an unnamed American city in the 1930’s.

They enter into a conflict with Italian competitor Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) and his lethal henchman Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman) over the unreliable bookie Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) who Caspar wants to kill and Leo protects.

When a gang war erupts, Tom and Leo’s friendship gets strained over a woman (Verna, played by Marcia Gay Harden) and Tom joins Caspar’s gang. But to what end?

Many scenes in Miller’s Crossing are reminiscent of The Godfather, but Coen Brother style which means darkly comical and at times outright bizarre, but also brilliantly executed.

The complex screenplay is an ingenious piece of work. Famously, the brothers got a writing block while penning it, so they took a break to write their next movie Barton Fink, which is about a screenplay writer with a terrible case of writing block. Then they returned to Miller’s Crossing and I think it became one of their best screenplays; full of hard boiled dialogue and layered characters.

The casting is also great. Gabriel Byrne was never better as the headstrong and principled Tom. All of the supporting cast members are excellent as well in equal measure. And the thrilling camerawork (lot’s of riding and swooping camera moves) seems to be inspired by the Coen’s best friend Sam Raimi who plays an amusing bit part in this film.

There are also lots of hats in this movie, but they don’t really mean anything.

15. State of Grace (1990)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Phil Joanou
Writer: Dennis McIntyre
Stars: Sean Penn, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

State of Grace is for the Irish mob what GoodFellas is for the Italian mafia. It’s that good. Terry Noonan (a moving Penn) returns to his old neighborhood Hell’s Kitchen in New York after a twelve year absence.

He hooks up with his old best friend Jackie (a sensational Oldman) whose brother Frank (a mesmerizing Harris) now leads the extremely violent Irish gang. He also rekindles the romance with his old flame Kathleen (an impressive Wright), Jackie and Frank’s younger sister.

Noonan, we soon learn, is really an undercover cop, sent in to get the dirt on Frank. It isn’t before long that he is torn between his duty and his loyalty towards his friends. Meanwhile, Frank is trying to make a pact with the Italian Cosa Nostra, which is disrupted by his loose cannon brother.

Terrific writing, acting and cinematography make this little gem the best gangster film that few people have seen. The final scene – a Wild Bunch style shootout in a bar – is one of the greatest endings in gangster cinema history.

If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you put it on your ‘to watch list’ today. Goes well together with a pitcher of Guinness. And did I mention that Ennio Morricone composed the music?

16. Menace II Society (1993)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Writers: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes, Tyger Williams
Stars: Tyrin Turner, Larenz Tate, Jada Pinkett Smith

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

A hard-hitting crime drama by the Hughes Brothers.

It opens with two young Black men – Caine (Tyrin Turner) and O-Dog (Larenz Tate) – walking into a store to buy a beer. The scene ends in an armed robbery and a double homicide.

This is where the young Caine ended up. We flash back to his youth in Watts, Los Angeles, in 1965, where, as a boy, he watches his father Tat (Samuel L. Jackson) murder a man in cold blood during a card game. He was initiated into this life of crime early.

Still, Caine seems like an alright guy. When he’s not selling drugs, he’s helping a friend – the single mom Ronnie (Jada Pinkett Smith) and her son, whose husband went to jail – and he’s graduating from high school. If only he could escape from ‘the life’…

His friend Sharif has converted to Islam and wants to leave the city. So there’s an out. But the life of crime is alluring. It’s the only way for them to get some of the things they like. It’s also a sure way to get themselves killed.

The violence in Menace II Society hits you hard – like a sledgehammer. The screenplay is very much inspired by GoodFellas, but with another ethnic group of criminals at its basis. It’s a powerful gangster tale drenched in the reality of Black America that carries an emotional punch.

The ending – no matter how many times you’ve seen it – is still devastating.