- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: Rififi, #27
Posted on 25 Apr 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, France, Movies, Movies & TV
That these guys are, as the French say, sympathique, is evident from the beginning of the robbery when Tony tucks a pillow behind the head of the elderly woman to make her more comfortable after she and her husband have been gagged and tied up. A clock ticking on a mantel provides a time line for the heist, which begins shortly before midnight and doesn’t end until six the next morning. In film time, the robbery takes about 30 minutes. And during those minutes, not a word—NOT ONE WORD—is spoken.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: The Untouchables, #28
Posted on 18 Apr 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
In the midst of a dinner party in his honor, Capone (Robert De Niro) takes out a Louisville Slugger and delivers a tribute to baseball as the All-American sport. As his underlings smoke cigars and chuckle in agreement, Capone circles a huge round table—finally stopping behind one nodding toadie. He briefly speaks of betrayal and then applies a few Ruthian swings to the employee’s skull.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: Eastern Promises, #29
Posted on 12 Apr 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Great Britain, Movies, Movies & TV, Russia
The diary of Tatiana (Tatiana Maslany), a 14-year-old, drug-addicted prostitute who dies while giving birth to a daughter in a London hospital, sets the film in motion. Her account of how and why she came to London—provided by periodic voice-overs as the diary is translated from Russian—offers a back story of the mob’s involvement in white slavery and English brothels.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: The French Connection, #30
Posted on 04 Apr 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
New York City is more gritty than pretty in this period piece, which was shot before the Big Apple’s late-20th century revival. The skies are gray, vacant lots are strewn with debris and there’s a doomed look to the city—right down to the rusty Rheingold beer signs. It’s not attractive, but the urban tangle is a genuine representation of a time and place.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: The Petrified Forest, #31
Posted on 28 Mar 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
Watching The Petrified Forest you can see Bogey developing his craft. Riffing off of John Dillinger, he holds his arms at a curious angle, like he is about to reach for a gun. (For decades, Bogey impersonators would ape that posture.) Bogart studied films of Dillinger and tries here to recreate the famous bank robber’s battered facial expression and insolent demeanor.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: City of God, #32
Posted on 21 Mar 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
The frantic pace and relentless violence drive home the promotional tagline that so accurately described the film: “Fight and you’ll never survive. . . . Run and you’ll never escape.”
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: American Gangster, #33
Posted on 14 Mar 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, African American, Movies, Movies & TV
Based loosely on the life and times of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas, American Gangster was an attempt to do for America’s black underworld what the Godfather films did for the American Mafia.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: The Long Good Friday, #34
Posted on 07 Mar 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Great Britain, Movies, Movies & TV
There’s a fascinating blend of flag waver and felon in the English bulldog character created by Bob Hoskins in The Long Good Friday. Comparing his homeland with that of a visiting American Mafiosi, Shand says, “Look what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than the hot dog, know what I mean?”
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: In Bruges, #35
Posted on 28 Feb 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Belgium, Movies, Movies & TV
Two Irish hit men, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), are sent to Bruges, a picturesque medieval city in Belgium, to hide out after a hit in London goes awry.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: Pépé le Moko, #36
Posted on 21 Feb 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, France, Movies, Movies & TV
Pépé le Moko is described as a foray into poetic realism and as the precursor to what became known as film noir. The movie works in large part because of Gabin, who portrays the gangster Pépé as a multidimensional character whose flaws are also his charms.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: A History of Violence, #37
Posted on 14 Feb 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
Joey Cusack was the nastiest guy in Philadelphia’s Irish mob. He killed dozens, sometimes without the go-ahead from his bosses. Had a real vicious side. Carved up a made man with barbed wire once, scraping out his eye. And then, he wanted out.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: The Friends of Eddie Coyle, #38
Posted on 07 Feb 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
There is no glamour in the underworld of Eddie Coyle, nor is there any attempt by the director to pretend that there is. This is a gritty, realistic look at “the life.” And while those who love the movie compare it favorably to The Departed, this film’s hard-luck lead protagonist and his inevitable fate are more reminiscent of Al Pacino’s role in Donnie Brasco. But either comparison is high praise.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, #39
Posted on 31 Jan 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Great Britain, Movies, Movies & TV
The twisting, amusing heist movie was written and directed by Guy Ritchie, a 29-year-old Brit who never went to film school and learned his craft by creating music videos and TV commercials. Unfortunately, as we see it, this feature-length debut also serves as the high point of Ritchie’s career—unless you count his eight-year marriage to Madonna.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: Miller’s Crossing, #40
Posted on 24 Jan 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, Movies, Movies & TV
In a cast as deep as the 1998 Yankees, two performances stand out. Character actor Jon Polito is riveting as Johnny Caspar, the perspiring old-school gangster who also serves as Miller’s Crossing’s street-level philosopher. And John Turturro steals scenes as Bernie, the double-crossing bookie at the center of all the trouble.
- 100 Greatest Gangster Films: Infernal Affairs, #41
Posted on 17 Jan 2013 in 100 Greatest Gangster Films, China, Movies, Movies & TV
Martin Scorsese used this movie as the framework for The Departed. And while Infernal Affairs has received high praise and dozens of awards, the feeling here is that Scorsese took an interesting plot and made it into a classic film.
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