The Family (2013)

Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer play husband and wife in the comedy-drama “The Family” which follows a mob-connected clan unable to keep their New Yawk F.U. attitude in check while living in rural France under witness protection. Dad pummels a shady plumber with a hammer, mom blows up a grocery for its lack of peanut butter, while the children (Dianna Argo and David Belle) pull of blackmail and crush anyone who crosses them. Tommy Lee Jones, haggard and grouchy as always, plays the haggard and grouchy U.S. federal agent who has to keep the family safe from assassins. See, De Niro’s dad snitched his mafia bosses and is now wanted. Director Luc Besson -– he made “The Professional” –- eyes slapstick comedy upfront, and drama and suspense later, asking us to sympathize with these hard-ass ’Mericans when the guns come. It’s an ugly shift: We’re not talking Bernstein Bears here. This family proudly dishes cruelty, yet when tables turn, suddenly violence is wrong? (Never mind the high body count of innocents.) Love the “Goodfellas” bit, though. B-

Pulp (1972)

Mike Hodges’ Italy-set dark comedy “Pulp” is the tale of a crime writer (Michael Caine) who fancies himself a gangster and a blowhard retired actor (Mickey Rooney) who was once that gangster. The plot: Novelist Mickey King gets hired to ghost write the memoirs of Rooney’s mobster, and all that pulp fiction that bubbles out of King’s pointy head becomes real with guns, bombs, and bodies. Hodges (“Flash Gordon,” a long-time guilty pleasure favorite) starts strong with a free-spirit slapstick vibe that screams anything goes, but that pitch comes with a price. Vital exposition is endlessly told, rarely shown, by Caine, and when Rooney exits, “Pulp” loses its punch. By the finale, set on a beach and truly unexplainable, nothing seems worth caring about. As that’s how King operates, maybe it’s on purpose, and I’m just not hip to the joke. Caine is marvelous, making a joke of his fantastic accent and lady-killer charisma. But I loved Rooney. I prefer him gruff, here and in “Requiem for a Heavyweight.” (He’s damn funny, too.) This tiny guy blowing fury, tearing down meat-hook-hands guys 6 foot 5? It’s great stuff. B

Stand Up Guys (2013)

It’s a kick to see Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin play off each other in “Stand Up Guys,” a comedy about aging gangsters who can still -– as stated repeatedly -– kick ass or chew gun, and no one has any gum. That joke gets repeated. Our three acting gods make it work. Mostly. What they cannot save is the stick a needle in a hard cock joke, which De Niro already suffered through with Ben Stiller. And not even Brando in his prime could save the WT-holy-F gang rape victim bit which has the trio finding a bound, gagged, and naked assault victim in the trunk of a car they have stolen. Get her to the hospital? Is she traumatized? Injured? No. Our heroes take the lady out for dinner, find the perps, and layout violent justice, hooting and hollering along the way. Seriously. Really. Actor-turned-director Fisher Stevens is so busy making these guys woo-ha cwazzy that he never makes them dangerous, so much so that not even the notion of Walken’s assassin being forced to kill Pacino’s crook makes a slight dent. Irony: Despite the deluge of dick jokes, “Guys” has no balls. C+

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Brad Pitt's grim crime thriller “Killing Them Softly” already has much box office notoriety: A money loser slapped with an “F” from CinemaScore. Hell with that. This is ballsy filmmaking of the highest order. Andrew Dominik -– who made “Assassination of Jesse James” with Pitt -– is behind “KSF” as director/writer, and he is not out to please anyone. We follow two low-end criminals (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) who rob a mafia-run card game, and escape with cash in hand and angry men in pursuit, one of them a world-weary hit man played by Pitt. “KSF” is set in 2008, during the economic meltdown and Obama/McCain election, and Dominik uses the panic and uncertainty of the time to explode the panic and uncertainty onscreen. There are no heroes, jokes, or happy endings. It’s a devastating punch about real criminal life, peppered with sad-sacks, drug-users, and average joes in over their heads. Not necessarily evil. Unintended fuck-ups. Dominik dares say our politicians, Wall Street bankers, and Founding Fathers are/were no different. It's the American way. Even a tedious slow-mo killing and oddball fireworks scene can’t hide that “KSF” is shockingly true cinematic art. A-

Looper (2012)

In “Looper,” director/writer Rian Johnson (“Brick”) takes the worn idea of time travel and renews it, not just with vigor, wit, and head-turning suspense, but strong characters that act in ways never touched on before -– suicide. Well, not exactly suicide as we know it.

Joseph Gordon Levitt (“Inception” and also “Brick”) plays Joe, a hit man who kills mafia castoffs delivered from 30 years in the future where time travel is possible but illegal. Crazy? Don’t mind it. Joe is known as a Looper because, literally, one day he must execute himself, his older late-50s self. Close the loop. Get it?

The scratch in this time trick: Old Joe turns out to be a vengeance-seeking raging pissed-off man-of-action embodied by Bruce Willis in full “Die Hard” mode, ready to hunt and kill a mysterious young boy who decades later will become an evil Keyzor Soze-like crime boss that will ruin Joe’s — both Joes — life. (A day without referencing “The Usual Suspects” is a day wasted.)

This is trippy, shocking story-telling, and Johnson dares play his hand wide open by admitting onscreen that time travel is pure bunk, a mind screw that is best left unraveled, and then he stomps the gas hard for go, non-stop. He also goes “meta” by having Young Joe’s mafia boss (Jeff Daniels) sulk around as the world’s laziest mobster, opting for PJs over clothes, but able to pop off dark and violent when his underlings fail.

Best bits: Daniels as this mob boss denounces Young Joe’s motives as a hit man who has watched too many movies about hit men, and then Johnson goes onto practically film and his cast act out a full-on worship sequence of mafia hit man classic “Goodfellas.” Time is not just twisted here, but the world of movies, inside and out, is tweaked and turned on its head. Also up for debate grabs: The effects of child abuse, loveless parenting, and how we change — and in many ways remain stunted — as we age. Heavy, wonderful stuff all around.

Johnson scores a knockout, too, because his cast, writing, emotion, and the action are all stellar. Levitt -– under makeup -– makes a believable Willis. All the junk on his face is off-putting at first, but Levitt moves beyond it, and the story is so strong, such complaints fall by the way side. I’ll take occasional makeup mishaps any day over a plot-empty, CGI-drunk stinker such as “Battleship.” I thought “Brick” far too clever for its own good, setting a film noir mystery in a high school. It never earned the raves. This does, easily so.

Also, check out Paul Dano of “There Will be Blood,” playing a fellow hit man who meets a horrifying fate right out of the nastiest episode of “Twilight Zone” ever imagined, but never filmed. More so than even Levitt, Dano is an actor we’ll be talking about decades from now as the best of his generation, his and our time. A-

Lawless (2012)

If you watch the 1930s-set backwoods gangster flick “Lawless” and don’t know better, and you’d be a major idiot not to know better, you might think tiny, mountainous Franklin County, Va., is over the hill and through the woods and one covered bridge over from big bad Windy City Chicago. Director John Hillcoat and screenwriter (and rock god) Nick Cave, who previously collaborated on the excellent “The Proposition” and the very good “The Road,” likely believe so.

But I digress, as I always do with the details. 

The duo has taken the wonderfully titled non-fiction family-history novel “The Wettest County in the World” by (my proximity) local author Matt Bondurant and drably re-titled it as “Lawless.” It follows a backwoods trio of Bondurant brothers (Tom Hardy, Shia LeBeouf, and Jason Clarke) who moonlight as moonshiners, selling the vile-looking homemade hooch during the days of Prohibition. Sure enough, things go wrong. In the span of just a few weeks, a (1) former go-go dancer, (2) infamous mob boss, and (3) corrupt federal agent -– all from Chicago, all on separate missions in life -– end up in wee Rocky Mount, and onto the brothers, they respectively, 1) Land a job at the family diner/gas station, 2) Sniff out killer booze to sell back home, and 3) Terrorize the siblings with endlessly wicked means of unlawful law enforcement. The newcomers are played by 1) Jessica Chastain, 2) Gary Oldman, and 3) Guy Pearce. 

The Rocky Mount and Chicago depicted here each must have one only dirt road going out, and it meets in the middle, and provide light-speed travel a la “Star Trek.” Hell, today in real life, it takes roughly 12 hours to get from Rocky Mount to Chicago. Here, pre-Interstate, pre-cruise control, it is magically faster. How fast is to get to Philadelphia? Does the title refer to liquor running, or the rules of physics, time, and distance?

But no matter these logic lapses, nor the cliché dialogue, “Lawless” floats and sinks on the acting. I’ll focus on the guys as the women (Mia Wasikowska also co-stars as a love interest) are only allowed to look “purty” and be supportive to their menfolk. Tom “Bane” Hardy grunts most of his scenes to ill-advised comic effect, while Clarke howls madly with his slimly written character. LeBeouf, former son of Indiana Jones, gives his best as a wimpy runt who must become a hardened man, but his character arc is foolish in the end. Oldman’s nasty scenes are a mere but oh-so-welcome series of cameos.

It’s –- shocker -- Pearce that near kills this film. “Proposition,” “Memento” and “L.A. Confidential” are each new classics, and he excels in all. Here, he overacts himself right out of the movie as a sissy snot named Rakes, channeling Dennis Hopper playing Dame Edna playing an endlessly psychotic version of super-agent-man Elliot Ness with a subscription to GQ for Sadists. Sporting ridiculously greased and parted hair, and shaved eyebrows, Rakes fears blood, and yet –- it is inferred -– gets his thrills raping crippled boys after he murders them in the woods. In a gangster flick in the New York of Mars by David Lynch on full-tilt “Wild at Heart” craziness, his character would stick out as a ridiculous clown. Here? Please.

Oh, one piece of divine greatness: Legendary bluegrass singer and Southwestern Virginia native Ralph Stanley covers the Velvet Underground’s “White Light /White Heat” at film’s end, and it’s an absolutely riveting, soul crushing performance that deserves a far better movie to precede it. For that matter, the entire music score, led by the genius Cave, elevates the movie, especially a breath-taking church singing which hits the soul dead center with pure joy-of-God beauty that can uplift an agnostic. The film misses. C

GoodFellas (1990) and Heat (1995)

Watching Robert De Niro burn his unparalleled talents in shit such as “Little Fockers” or “Righteous Kill,” it’s unbelievable that just 20 years ago he had two of the best films in his storied career and of the decade under his belt. “GoodFellas” – directed by Martin Scorsese – and “Heat” – directed by Michael Mann – are crime genre classics, eternally re-watchable and endlessly fascinating. The man is a monster in both films, of cinematic talent, and of men’s character. 

“GoodFellas” opens with this line, spoken by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a Bronx-born hood who was mobbed up by age 14: “Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Wow. This is Hill’s story, from rise to vast rule to ketchup and egg noodles in the Midwest. De Niro is his mid-level mob boss. Joe Pesci costars in an infamously profane and violent performance so shocking, it’s bewildering to know the man he plays was far more dangerous. The film is flawless, so amazing good and detailed (the food alone!), it’s a thrill to behold for a 15^th viewing. My words do not do it justice. 

In “Heat,” De Niro is a master criminal of a high-end gang (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore co-headline his crew) being chased by an obsessive detective (Al Pacino, also scraping bottom in “Righteous” and “88 Minutes”) in Los Angeles. We also follow the cop’s home life as Mann’s three-hour epic film spreads far and wide, almost too wide – an icky serial killer plot thread goes nowhere. The actions scenes are you-are-there-real and spectacular, including a long finale outside the Los Angeles airport that boomed in a theater.

De Niro is the star of both, the ballast holding each film together, keeping the madness, violence, crazy details, and other actors (Pacino goes “PACINO” a few times) cemented and whole, but let it be known these worlds are the creation of, respectively, Scorsese and Mann, both in unmatched top form. Know this: “GoodFellas” was based on a true story, but “Heat” inspired a criminal duo to pull off a daring bank robbery that eerily mimicked the mid-section scene here.

GoodFellas: A+ Heat: A

The Long Good Friday (1980)

“The Long Good Friday” is an absolute pinnacle classic gangster film in the U.K., place of my birth. Here in the States, not so much. It may not have glory and prestige of “The Godfather” or “Goodfellas,” but it belongs in the same esteemed crime family. This is a hard-scrapple bitchin’ bloody mafia flick about a common London mafia thug who has risen to the level of Godfather, and now he wants to go legit.

It’s 1979, and in several years’ time, the city is expected to play host to the Olympics. (It’s fictional, youz guys.) Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) wants to buy up London’s real estate abutting the Thames River for development, with promised riches beyond compare to come. His investors? The American Mob. Guy ain’t going legit, just thinks he is, or tells us he is. Oh, but the IRA is bugging about, as one of his men has double-crossed them, and ended up knifed in a gay bathhouse.

The title is on purpose. It’s a long and bloody Easter weekend when Shant’s mob life goes to a violent hell, with bombings, murders, and threats galore, and one man will end up nailed Jesus-style to a floor. Hopkins has never been better or scarier, or more volatile, you can smell the brimstone coming off the guy through the TV set. When he rips a man’s throat apart with a broken whiskey bottle, it’s still a shocker, even on a 10th viewing. (I love this film.)

Helen Mirren is just amazing as Shants’ girlfriend-slash-brutal brains of the mob operation; every equal smarts to Hopkins’ brutality. She has to be one of the greatest actresses ever, period, end of story. Royally good. I will not stoop to a “Queen” joke, err, damn. Sorry.

The film starts off a puzzle box, with seemingly random scenes of dealings and bar hook ups and body dumps, all coming together at the end, in a wordless climax that should have won Hopkins an Oscar and can stand aside any scene in the more well-known films made by Coppola or Scorsese. Scotsman John Mackenzie is the director. He never made a better film and he died without merely a blip in the news this past June. Criminal indeed. (I cannot say I have seen his other work.)

Oh, and bonus points for “Remington Steele” and James Bond fans, this is Piece Brosnan’s first film rule, and he plays a wordless assassin who goes from man-on-man bathhouse shower action, I mean the kind that would send GOP voters into shock, to killer in a flash. But, hey, he uses a gun, so GOP voters will dig that, eh? Seriously, if you dig crime film, watch this, then put it in your collection. A+

Mad Dog and Glory (1993)

In “Mad Dog and Glory,” Robert De Niro plays a detective so meek and insecure his co-workers call him “Mad Dog” out of ironic jaunting. One night investigating a murder, Sad Puppy Wayne stumbles into a store robbery. Almost by accident he saves the life of a low-level gangster named Frank (Bill Murray). Not a little amused, Frank – who moonlights as a standup comic who might send thugs to kill you for not laughing -- thanks Wayne by loaning him a “present,” Gloria (a young Uma Thurman). Here’s where “Dog” shits. I get that this comedy gets its spark from the anti-type-casting, De Niro as a doormat, and Murray as the heavy, but did Thurman have to play a cup of sugar in high heels? Much ink was spilled about reshoots and script changes. Apparently Gloria was interesting at one point. Not here. She’s the fantasy girl of all loser-loners – she’ll fuck you blue just for being smart enough to wipe your shoes after coming home. Cruelly sexist, I hated this film with righteous, liberal, progressive anger. It is Murray who saves it from a lesser grade. C-

The King of New York (1990)

From the first minute of “King of New York,” Christopher Walken owns the screen. And he doesn’t speak for another 10. Directed by Abel Ferrara, the “King” is Frank White, a recently paroled mob boss who makes clear that he will never again bow or be caged. Bodies stack high as White alternately wrecks havoc on his competitors and the police alike. Meanwhile, White plays Robin Hood, giving away millions to the needy. This is wildly violent stuff that makes “Goodfellas” seem quaint, especially after a band of rogue cops (headed by a young David Caruso) declare war on White. The plot is thin, and not interested in the criminal mindset. This is all about mood, and the mood is bloody, messy, dark as a lightless cave, and unsafe for everyone on screen. Walken is delirious, funny, dangerous and wicked cool, all in a single scene. “King”rules. A-

American Gangster (2007)

"American Gangster," the second film to pit Denzel Washington against Russell Crowe, improves with each viewing, although this crime drama never reaches the pinnacle level of "The French Connection" or even "Heat."

In the utterly bad 1995 thriller "Virtuosity," Crowe played a villain against Washington's unorthodox cop hero. Here, Crowe is unorthodox cop Richie Roberts, a Boy Scout on the job but a miserable louse at home, tasked with bringing down Harlem crime lord Frank Lucas (Washington). My first viewing left me under-whelmed as I expected and wanted a gritty, clockwork crime thriller. But this film, directed by Ridley Scott ("Gladiator") and written by Steven Zailian ("Schindler's List"), is more interested in the character and inner-workings of these opposing forces, not just the crime beat.

Crowe once more disappears into a role as the tough but fair police officer so honest he once turned in $1 million after a bust. He's also a bit of nerd, fumbling into a sweaty heap at the thought of speaking before an audience. Ironically, Lucas is a family man who remains loyal to his mother (Ruby Dee) and wife (Lymari Nadal). You marvel at the great heights Lucas could have reached had he been on the right side of the law. But in late 60s/early 70s, such hands were not dealt to American blacks.

I didn't like Washington's performance the first time I saw this, but was instantly won over this time. What I took for lazy arrogance in Washington's acting has turned into admiration for a fine performance of a man completely at ease with murder, selling of drugs and going to church on Sunday. Lucas' eyes, though, open as an army of corrupt NYC cops lays waste to his mansion, looking for money, and his momma slaps him in the face for the vengeance he'll seek. It's telling of Dee's power as an actress in her 80s that she can take a film from the hands of Washington and Crowe, but she does so.

Scott, as with Michael Mann, here becomes a master of detail, and his dramatization of the inner-workings of police and criminals is fascinating although the film wastes too much time on family court sideshows and making Lucas' family out to be Southern hillbillies gawking at big ol' New York. Best shocker: Cuba Gooding Jr. finally lands a meaty part in a highbrow film after years of miserable features so bad they now line the discount DVD bins at Wal-Mart. Let's hope he keeps up this path. A-

Road to Perdition (2002)

"Road to Perdition" is as far from a comic book movie as one could get, but it's nonetheless based on a graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner. With a brilliant cast that includes Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci and a star-making turn by Daniel Craig, it's a great film that could one day gain classic gangster film status.

Hanks plays Mike Sullivan, the enforcer of John Rooney (Newman), a small-city gangster who seems to rule his berg like a wise, old and content Al Capone. But the mad, immoral Connor Rooney (Craig) is grabbing for pop's power, and in the process Sullivan's family, save for his oldest child (Tyler Hoechlin), are murdered. Then the chase is on: Mike and son flee to Chicago for help from Frank Nitti (Tucci). Following is a psychopathic assassin/photographer (Law).

The film just isn't about the mafia, guns and murder, although there's plenty to go around. It's about fathers and sons, and the constant loss communications. The Michaels must bond, and learn to trust one another. And John Rooney, who sees Mike as the son he wished he had, rages and then protects the one he was dealt. This was one of the Newman films I watched after his passing, and it's a great final big screen bow. Newman is brilliant, full of fire and evil as a man who knows he's going to hell for his sins, but must bury himself further in a sulfur pit to keep Connor alive. Newman doesn't have many lines, he lets his body language -- sometimes stiff, sometimes slack, sometimes withered, other times in full violent rage -- do the work. He plays the man as powerful, but broken to the core.

Craig, one of a few actors who can almost match Newman on charisma, is a stunner as the evil adult child. Sam Mendes, coming off "American Beauty," has made a great film. Props to Thomas Newman's top-notch score and the rural, open setting of most of the film. A