I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster

I don't usually review films but this film is like a breeze. Watched it again after almost 4 years. Caught it first on TV, watched it a few times and remembered it since then for being underrated.

All four stories are quite uplifting in nature and quite irreverent to the ebbs and flows of life, this is something you can watch if you are having a hard day. In terms of craft, quite similar to: Bottle Rocket, Clerks(1994) and The Band's Visit. Quite humorous specially the scene where the two kidnappers argue about five boxes of corn-flakes.

Great film, worth watching.

Four stories of wannabe criminals attempting to improve the lot in life through illegal activities, and fumbling it with various degrees of success. But every character here is sympathetic, and their reasons are presented from a viewpoint of empathy. Despite the rhythm never too tight, and occasionally positively glacial, it's actually very funny, inviting us to linger on the facial expressions, the gestures, the little details. Jean Rochefort and Laurent Terzieff, Arno Hintjens and Alain Bashung are spectacular. You can detect influences as varied as Tarantino, Kaurismaki, Jarmusch, and the French crime serials of the silent era. The result is oddly uplifting and very entertaining.

This was the first movie we saw at Sundance this year, and we really did enjoy it. It's not a laugh riot from beginning to end, but its gentle humor amused us, and we were interested enough in the characters to care about the story. This was actually 4 vignettes tied together by a common location. We actually were disappointed that some of the stories were left hanging, so to speak, and we were left to wonder about their characters. Another picky-picky complaint (and perhaps this was just our theater), was that the subtitles got lost in the white counter tops at the bottom of the screen. They were very difficult to read at times. Perhaps a different color font should have been used.