Starring: Alexis Bledel, Scott Porter, Bryan Greenburg
Category: Drama
How would you market a movie about something that everybody hates? Find that redeeming quality and shine a light on it, darkening everything else? Focus on an angle that would make it appeal to the widest audience to get the most number of people through the door on opening day?
This movie is hard to like because it is about stockbrokers and the lives that they lead. It is harder to like because it came out after the crash of the market. What made it almost impossible to like is that it is about the type of people who would give themselves bonuses after being bailed out by the government because of a problem they created. Even if the movie was partly true, it would have made people upset. Problem is, it probably just scratched the surface because it focused on the traders lives, which are extravagant themselves, rather than their bosses.
Beth (Alexis Bledel) is in a relationship with Tommy, an experienced stockbroker. She is introduced to Daniel, an up and coming broker who Tommy has decided to take under his wing. Tommy wants Daniel to be one of the guys. Why? Maybe he saw a part of himself in Daniel. And wants to beat that part of out him.
Needless to say that the movie is really about Tommy. It begins with a seemingly heartfelt moment when he goes and begs for Beth. We then get to see the events leading to that moment. Needless to say, it is not what it seems to be. Tommy begins the movie as the Good Guy. He seems like it. He is nice to Beth. He vouches for Daniel. But he has an agenda. To understand what Daniel wants to be, you have to look at Cash, Tommy's boss and idol. He is on his way to becoming Cash.
The other characters were largely supporting and stereotypical. I will admit I watched this because of Alexis Bledel. Anna Chlumsky of My Girl is in it too. The movie tries hard to be one of those selling New York as a great place to live and work. What made the movie worst is that it literally shows us that New York is a great place to live and work if you got the cash. Which was Tommy's problem at the beginning/end of the movie.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Charlie Valentine. Mob movie unfinished
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.
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.
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