Starring: Raymond J. Barry, Michael Weatherly
Category: Action
It is a story of an aging mob enforcer who has no qualms as to who he is nor what he does. He knows he is just a thug in nice clothes. There is no pretense of glamour. He likes the life though. The money, the girls. He understands that his skill for violence is a tool and does not let it consume him. He appreciates that his style and the image of the mobster is attractive to some but shrugs them off knowing well that the image is not real. He knows that he is a survivor and that the most important thing to him is to keep living, to keep surviving. Deep inside, he knows he is a coward.
He decides to hit his boss for that last score to go off and retire. He gives specific instructions to not carry guns which everyone in his team ignores. Although an odd request, he knows that if they get caught without guns, they may be in for a beating but will probably live to see another day. It goes wrong and everyone but him is killed. He makes a run for it with his 'retirement plan': His boss's prize Cobra sportscar. With no place to go, he reconnects with Danny, his son. Danny is a former convict who idolizes his father. He works for Ferucci a low level mobster running a strip club. Finding a new lease on life and being in the odd position of being looked up to, he begins to groom his son into his image.
But is he redeeming himself? He may be reconnecting with his son but he is bringing him deeper into the underworld. Charlie teaches him reluctantly at first but is energized by his enthusiasm. He knows he has made all the wrong choices but will he let his son see them as the right ones?
This low budget mob movie is gritty and focuses on the reality of a mobster. It strips away the glamour and polish, leaving the violence and broken lives of the people living by crime. The violence is graphic and obviously where most of the budget went. I never though I'd ever say this but they should have spent a bit more on the set. The locations were great. There warehouse where Rocco makes his office is a telling reality of his life. The cash he deals with maybe a lot but it doesn't buy him the luxury you would expect a mobster at his level would have. But that is reality. In a crime organization, only the top tier live anything close to the mobsters in Scorsese movies. Rocco may collect a lot of cash, but he has to hand it up to his bosses as well as to pay for the people around him (who pay others below them). I guess that is why respect, another form of currency, is so valued.
Other locations like the loft and the rooftop were also great. But when it came to the sets, it was letdown and totally destroyed the credibility of the movie. They clearly looked like TV sets. Not even TV movie sets. TV sets for a local TV show (if they have them anymore). They were dressed as badly too. Only the set that was Red's bedroom was well done and looked like someone actually lived there. But the others, like the hotel room, the hallway and Ferucci's office in the what was the most important scene of the movie were a failure.
The acting was ok and although my initial thought were: 'How bad is this movie going to be when even the 'B' movie actors were showing up for a scene or two?', the lead actors made up for it. They both made the most of the material and were convincing in their own way. Raymond Barry played an aging warrior on the run. A mobster with a realist streak. Michael Weatherly was the son who never thought he would get the chance to meet, much less bond, with the father he never knew.
If there was a need for focus groups and test audiences pre-screenings, this movie probably showed it.
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