Gangster films

[Famous Mortimer]

If you download the Godfather Saga (which I think was only shown on TV and released on laserdisc), it puts all the deleted scenes back into the film and cuts it all together chronologically.

And in a 3-VHS box, which is the way I originally saw both films (seeing them later, without the chronological cut, baffled me a bit).

[Hank Venture]

Oh, and the Pusher trilogy. I'm being tedious now, going on and on about them, but they really are good.

So, Un Prophéte and Pusher 1-3.

[Saucer51]

The Godfather is one of two superior gangster movies. The book is better, more detailed but I disagree with the poster who believes that the vengeance for Bonasera's daughter should have been shown. It was a pretty mundane request to fulfill in order for the viewer to get a feel for the Corleones. Beating up folk is ten a penny thing on screen surely? Some things are best left to the imagination. It was the lesson taught to Jack Woltz that was worth keeping from the book. Incidentally some aspects of his character from the novel would make the film viewer want him dead but I think Coppola/Puzo were right to keep that out of the screenplay. It would make the Corleone's seem like avenging superheroes when really I suppose they were just a social club and security system for a select few.
Goodfellas is the other epic one. I too share the admiration for the touches of cruel black humour in the film. After the execution of Stacks, Joe Pesci orders his friend "make that coffee to go....It's a joke, you dizzy motherfucker."
And the murder of Morrie, their chatty and harmless friend, killed in the passenger seat of the car by having a scewer pierce his spinal column.
Joe Pesci: "I thought he'd never shut the fuck up"
Robert De Niro: "Pain in the ass"
Not even anger driving them. Just a cold assassination reminding the viewer what separates them from these killers.

I don't think these two films are necessarily comparable as one deals with the foot soldiers of organised crime, the other the execs. But superior to all other gangster films.

I liked The Long Good Friday and the idea of a cocky criminal boss

Spoiler alert

being brought down by political fanatics he was unable to pay off.

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Sexy Beast - a good cast, a good script and an elecrifying performance by Ben Kingsley. A terrifying and convincing nutcase who again shows snatches of black humour aboard the 'plane and later on with Spanish police.

[Lord Mandrake]

I think the Departed never get's enough credit, it's Scorsese at his best for me with a fantastic cast and numerous nods to movies like the original Scarface and Public Enemy.. There's also a brilliant documentry on the real South Boston crew which inspired the film as much as Infernal Affairs did. I looked at Goodfella's again recently and it hasn't aged well for me, whatever terrible deeds the Italian American mobsters do Scorsese can@t help but romanticise them whereas his take on the Irish crew's is objective and interesting..

[Cohaagen]

I haven't seen it yet, but if you have Freeview Film4 have started showing A Prophet, so just a heads up as it's meant to be pretty Gangsta!

I watched it the night before last - it's very good. Superbly acted, in fact. That said, I feel they should either have made more of the more fantastical elements such as

Spoiler alert

the main character's hallucinations/visions

[close]

, or perhaps just have left them out and played it totally straight and naturalistic. I think the second option would have resulted in a better, more streamlined movie. Great film, though. The two leads are, as I said, brilliant in their roles.

Also speaking of films I've not got round to watching yet, I have Mesrine here waiting to be watched.

The two Mesrine films are both excellent also. With them and Un Prophete the French seem to be on a bit of a roll, gangster-wise. Mesrine himself had the writer's advantage of being an authentic fucking nut. A bullshitter and pathological egotist as well, yes, but there is police and third-party corroboration for a lot of what he did - he wasn't a complete liar. Compare a homegrown specimen such as the meatheaded 'roid monster Raoul Moat - a Geordie fuckwit wandering around with a tent, dictafone and crummy sawn-off full of birdshot - and Mesrine: a dedicated vocational bank-robber, an ex-paratrooper who was a master of disguise but could also be reckoned to pack body armour, hand grenades, automatic weapons (and use them) when needed. A genuinely dangerous man. Cassel can always be relied on for a great performance too.

Oh, and the Pusher trilogy. I'm being tedious now, going on and on about them, but they really are good.

So, Un Prophéte and Pusher 1-3.

I haven't seen you talk about the Pusher films on here before, so I'm going to add my recommendation to yours. The way Refn took and expanded on secondary or peripheral characters for the sequels was brilliant I thought. Pusher (#1) could be regarded as a standalone classic in itself (Kim Bodnia is very good in the title role), but the trilogy as a whole is a masterwork. The second, centred on the gormless Tonny, is the best I think. It has the best ending shot of any film of the last 20 years, for one thing, and Mads Mikkelsen is just incredible. He's wasted on the likes of that Bond shit. Likewise, I'd prefer to see Refn doing stuff like this than the stylish but ultimately hollow and occasionally silly Bronson, which owes a great deal to, yet isn't as good as, Chopper, another modern gangster classic that I can't praise enough.

[Famous Mortimer]

Talking of French gangster films (although it's maybe more of a heist film) "Doberman" is brilliant.

[Custard]

Not read the whole thread yet (don't you just love it when people do that?), but I'd like to recommend Bugsy, with that Warren Beatty and that Annette Bening (who has never looked better than in that film. PHWOOAAAAR, LADS)

It's a great, almost over-egged, hammy performance from Beatty, and it makes the inevitable downfall of the end all the harsher. A fine one of the gangster films

EDIT - OK, read the thread. Some great choices. I'd also like to add the brilliant Get Carter. Watch in a double-bill with The Long Good Friday for British gangster heaven

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Mean Streets is fairly shite.

In Bruges is really shite.

RocknRolla is complete shite.

[Saucer51]

Talking of French gangster films (although it's maybe more of a heist film) "Doberman" is brilliant.

I thought Doberman was quite slapstick, not in the typical genre of a crime flick. However, regarding gangster/heist films, Riffifi is a classic.

[Saucer51]

RocknRolla is complete shite.

I thought it was slightly entertaining but tries too hard. Guy Ritchie, despite his numerous attempts, doesn't do gangster films well. What he did with Sherlock Holmes was great, kind of makes up for the atrocities of Lock Stock and Snatch.

[SavageHedgehog]

Not read the whole thread yet (don't you just love it when people do that?), but I'd like to recommend Bugsy, with that Warren Beatty and that Annette Bening (who has never looked better than in that film. PHWOOAAAAR, LADS)

It's a great, almost over-egged, hammy performance from Beatty, and it makes the inevitable downfall of the end all the harsher. A fine one of the gangster films

I'll second that; an unjustly forgotten film. Great production design and dialogue; gripping all round.

[Ignatius_S]

There are a ton of deleted scenes for the three films...

Cheers for that - my appetite has been whetted!

The Godfather is one of two superior gangster movies. The book is better, more detailed but I disagree with the poster who believes that the vengeance for Bonasera's daughter should have been shown...

I don't think anyone said that should have been shown in the film. As for that book being better, nah.

I think the Departed never get's enough credit, it's Scorsese at his best for me with a fantastic cast and numerous nods to movies like the original Scarface and Public Enemy....

Personally, I think it's a little flabby - some great performances, but overall, I'd say the original film was superior.

[kngen]

Personally, I think it's a little flabby - some great performances, but overall, I'd say the original film was superior.

Definitely - the analogy I used at the time is that Scorsese took a perfect 3-minute pop song and turned it into a 12-minute jam session.

Re: Goodfellas, Mean Streets etc all getting shoddy reissues - I read somewhere that it was because Scorseses was talking an almighty age overseeing the transferal of the original prints to digital, and Warners have just been re-re-releasing inferior versions in the meantime. Maybe it will never see the light of day, but I hope so. It's one of the few blu-ray discs I'd actually bother owning.

[CaledonianGonzo]

City of God was on the box on Saturday night and - not having seen it since it came out - I thought I'd give it another viewing.

I thought it really held up.  It is a *little* flashy and could be described as a little too in thrall to Scorsese to the point it ends up looking a little Guy Ritchie in places, but I found a lot to enjoy in it and it pretty much kept me hooked throughout its running time.

[Lord Mandrake]

I watched Donnie Brasco again last night and I know it's stating the obvious but Pacino is just sublime, you have to watch his performance many times to notice how many nuances and weird expressions he effortlessley throws away. Depp and Madson are also on good form but Pacino is in another universe for example

Spoiler alert

when Sonny Black's crew whack Sonny Red's in the basement, after they let off the first rounds the way Pacino fumbles in his pocket and the look of panic/menace on his face is just unforgettable

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[Utter Shit]

The Guard is sort-of a gangster film, and obviously it is brillo.

[Ignatius_S]

Definitely - the analogy I used at the time is that Scorsese took a perfect 3-minute pop song and turned it into a 12-minute jam session.

Re: Goodfellas, Mean Streets etc all getting shoddy reissues - I read somewhere that it was because Scorseses was talking an almighty age overseeing the transferal of the original prints to digital, and Warners have just been re-re-releasing inferior versions in the meantime. Maybe it will never see the light of day, but I hope so. It's one of the few blu-ray discs I'd actually bother owning.

Hee, I rather like that an analogy – will have to pass it off as my own.

Interesting about Scorsese.

I watched Donnie Brasco again last night...

I really need to watch that – I bought the book that it was based on a little while ago and thought it was just great.

[Nuclear Optimism]

I have to second Ignatius_S' recommendation of Gangster No 1. I saw it last week and it's absolutely marvellous. I'm surprised it isn't more highly regarded; it seems to have been overshadowed by Sexy Beast in the early 2000s British gangster pantheon.

Paul Bettany is absolutely terrifying; it's such a fantastically evil performance. There's not a drop of empathy or humanity in his eyes, he's like a shark. Yeah, he doesn't look, sound, move or act a bit like Malcolm McDowell (they're supposed to be playing the same character at different ages), but he's more of an idealised memory of his youth than the actual thing. I'm sure it's a deliberate choice. I like the idea that in "real life" the young gangster would have looked like McDowell in his youth, but he's so ego-driven that he imagines himself being significantly taller, cooler and better-looking than he really was.

There's a super nasty scene of violence entirely seen entirely from the POV of the victim. It's like a blood soaked episode of Peep Show. Brilliantly shot.

[phantom_power]

Gangster No. 1 is a great film that sadly got lost in all the Lock Stock rip offs that came out just after Ritchie's film. Bethany is fantastic and the film as a whole is ruthlessly brutal

[Peru]

Night And The City (1950). Great film of a fairly duff book. There is a wrestling scene in it that will blow your brain out of your head. The whole thing looks amazing - filmed on the fly in the ruins of bombed London buildings by Jules Dassin when he was about to be blacklisted and stopped from working in America ever again. Excellent performance from Richard Widmark too.

I thought In Bruges was just embarrassingly bad. The dialogue sounded as if it had been written by a 19-year-old film school student, rather than an award-winning playwright. And look at the funny dwarf lolz!!!!1!

[Mini]

The Guard is sort-of a gangster film, and obviously it is brillo.

It is excellent, as is In Bruges, which has to be one of my favourite films.

[Custard]

Was meant to say this earlier in the thread, but I would also like to squirt in a bit of love for the recent Mesrine films.

Bought them about a year back, in a double DVD set, and bloody ell, I really enjoyed them both. Sat through them both twice, pretty much back to back

Vincent Cassell is brilliant, and the story is obviously great.  I also like films that give away the ending right at the start. Saves time

[Endicott]

Does Boorman's Point Blank with Lee Marvin count as a gangster film? Or is it noir? It's brilliant, anyway. Same goes for The Killers (which for extra fun has Ronnie Reagan in it).

Another plus for The Godfather. I also remember liking Carlito's Way,  but it's been a long time since I saw it so can't remember much about it. Mean Streets is not shit.

What about Reservoir Dogs, or Heat? Or are they really heist movies? Actually I didn't really like Heat, I thought it was lacking something. I couldn't quite put my finger on what, but could never care about who won.

And already mentioned, The Long Good Friday, which even with its dated sound track still stands up as best British gangster film. It also got me my only pointless answer while I was watching Pointless[nb]the question was, films of Pierce Brosnan[/nb].

[DJ Solid Snail]

The Long Good Friday, which even with its dated sound track[/nb].

Whaaat? It has one of the greatest themes ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAXxYKave6o

[Garam]

Mikey and Nicky
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Mean Streets


Holy trinity of human gangster movies. Depressed, what did you think was shite about Mean Streets? I can almost get my head around someone not enjoying it, but thinking it's shite? Absolute nutter.


edit: the pool hall scene in Mean Streets is more exhilarating than all of Scorsese's post-Goodfellas work put together. Oof, you'd better have a good reason!

[DJ Solid Snail]

He said it's not shit!

[danyulx]

Garam, above, is correct. The greatest gangster film ever made, bar none, is in fact John Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Particularly in its 1978 re-edited form. An absolute masterpiece of a film. I'm also a big fan of the other two films mentioned.

I thought the recent Drive was a brilliant film. I suppose that's a gangster film.. it involves gangsters anyway, doing your bogstandard gangstery things. The director's earlier The Pusher Trilogy is outstanding also, especially the third film.

Most gangster films I can take or leave. Gangsters themselves do not interest me.. they're nothing more than money-obsessed, glorified businessmen and stupid, sadistic bastards to boot. The gangster films I tend to like seem to revolve around non-gangsters, up to their neck getting fucked over by gangsters. The gangsters are certainly nothing to look up to and admire in these films, in your typical Guy Richie sort of way. They're cunts.

A cracking piece of trivia on 'The Killing of a Chinese Bookie's IMDB page: "Ben Gazzara was unhappy with the role initially, unable to find a way to connect to Cosmo Vitelli. That changed when shooting a scene, Cassavetes spoke to Gazzara about the gangsters in the film as a metaphor for the people who are constantly trying to steal or ruin people's dreams. Cassavetes started to cry and Gazzara saw that playing Cosmo was representing John Cassavetes and the movie was a metaphor for the director's struggles for his own dreams."

Oh and - of course - there's the criminally underrated The Small World of Sammy Lee (1962). One of the greatest British films made in that era. I love that film. I'm baffled as to why it isn't a "classic". It has everything.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Watched A Prophet over the weekend, which managed to simultaneously be an exciting genre piece and a slice of social commentary/indictment of the penal system.

Though, I suppose you could definitely say it's a 'prison' movie rather than a 'gangster' one.

[Endicott]

Whaaat? It has one of the greatest themes ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAXxYKave6o

Yes, it does, it's superb, but I didn't mean that. By 'sound track', I meant the incidental music, but I could have been more specific.

[Cohaagen]

Watched A Prophet over the weekend, which managed to simultaneously be an exciting genre piece and a slice of social commentary/indictment of the penal system.

Though, I suppose you could definitely say it's a 'prison' movie rather than a 'gangster' one.

It's a very good film.

I ain't no poof man, but I got the classical stirrings for Tahar Rahim about half an hour into the picture, you know, when he's got the moustache and the bushy bushy hair. I wouldn't have asked to suck his dick like that guy in the showers, but I might have given him a couple of packs of Gauloises to come into my cell and sit on the end of the bed so he can stroke my hairy legs for 20 or 25 minutes. That boy's French alright. He gots the hamster eyes.