Mobsters (1991)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Michael Karbelnikoff

Writers (WGA):

Michael Mahern (story)
Michael Mahern (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

26 July 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

They rose from nothing to rule everything.

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...

Plot Keywords:

Death | Revenge | Mafia | Italian American | Betrayal

Awards:

2 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Thur. Nov. 19

7:15 AM

AMC

Cast

Christian Slater	...	Charlie 'Lucky' Luciano
Costas Mandylor	...	Frank Costello
Richard Grieco	...	Bugsy Siegel
Jeremy Schoenberg	...	Crapshooter
Miles Perlich	...	Crapshooter
Alan Charof	...	Rabbi
Patrick Dempsey	...	Meyer Lansky
Anto Nolan	...	Irish Cop
Rodney Eastman	...	Joey
Andy Romano	...	Antonio Luciano
Bianca Rossini	...	Rosalie Luciano
Stevie Restivo	...	Little Brother
Caroline Gillette	...	Little Sister
Robert Z'Dar	...	Rocco
Michael Gambon	...	Don Salvatore Faranzano

Also Known As:

Gangsters (USA) (working title)
The Evil Empire

Runtime:

104 min | Brazil:121 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Australia:R (original rating) | Iceland:16 | Argentina:18 | Australia:M (cable rating) | Finland:K-18 | Malaysia:(Banned) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

160 San Rafael Avenue, Pasadena, California, USA

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Lara Flynn Boyle's character of Mara is loosely based on the real-life Gay Orlova, a chorus girl and escort whom Lucky Luciano dated while in New York.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was shot by Dutch Schulz's hitmen in a cafe; Lucky Luciano had nothing to do with it.

Quotes:

Lucky: The law of the street was take or be taken.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Men Named Milo, Women Named Greta (2000)

Like a "Scholastic Books" adaptation of "The Godfather", short on sparks and juice

I understand that the movie is aimed at a younger audience than classics like "Godfather" and "Once Upon A Time In America". In fact the young 'all star' cast (almost a mafia version of "Young Guns") is the real point of the movie. But "Mobsters" casts a bunch of young pretty-boys (I include Dempsey in this category as a "fresh young face")in roles that are far over their heads and out of their collective reach. The movie tries very, very hard to convince us that these fellows are street-tough, hardened future mob leaders, but frankly, Slater and Grieco and company (as portrayed here) would get their tails kicked by the shop class students from my high school.

Before I saw this movie, I considered myself to be a fan of Christian Slater, Patrick Dempsey and Richard Grieco, and I was hoping for good things from all of them. But after watching this ill-considered melange of gangster movie clichés, I was instead convinced that none of these actors are any better than the material (and director) they have to work with and that their previous successes were happy accidents. And in spite of the historical resonance of its source material, the writer and director of "Mobsters" just don't give them anything worthwhile to work with. "I just set the cameras up and let them roll, OK?"

The movie suffers from a lack of compelling detail - both in the plot and in the way the actors inhabit the characters - in journaling the formation of these characters. Face it, in real life they were psychos, thieves, murderers and sociopaths and they did a lot of damage to American society. So the only reason to admire and emulate them is for of their toughness, cunning and tenacity in overcoming the odds and out-thinking and outmaneuvering their competition. But the movie gets lazy - it takes huge liberties with the source material, and substitutes a simple revenge motif for Luciano's overwhelming drive to dominate. As for the supposed masterstrokes of betrayal, strategy and double-dealing that Slater and company employ to cause their rivals' downfall, well...I've heard of more complex double dealings and betrayals in a junior high school girl's locker room. (From my sisters and girlfriends, of course...I wasn't there personally!) And the acting choices are essentially lazy too...I have to blame the director for this, since I've seen all these young actors do good work elsewhere.

It's not that the movie is unwatchable...no movie with Quinn and Gambon in it could ever be completely bad, and the rest of the cast is too professional for that to happen. It's just that the movie has no heart or guts or attention span. I also hate that it completely wastes Dempsey (who was engagingly resourceful, smart, quirky, and funny in previous roles and is none of those things here) and it pretends that the "Young (Tommy)guns are smarter and more interesting than Anthony Quinn and Michael Gambon. This is obviously not the case to anyone with eyes.

Don't waste your time with "Mobsters" if you want to watch movies about the Mafia. Stick with the classics. And pray that Slater comes to his senses someday and turns his career around, and that someone gives Dempsey another chance in a real movie someday - Dempsey's movie career apparently cratered with "Mobsters"...fortunately seems to have landed on his feet and moved permanently into television projects.