Movie Review: The Irishman (2019)

A sprawling gangland epic, The Irishman weaves a multi-decade story of violence and corruption among mobsters and unions.

At a nursing home, the elderly Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) reminisces about his life, starting in the 1950s when he was an army veteran working as a truck driver in the Philadelphia area. He meets influential mob boss Russell "Russ" Bufalino (Joe Pesci), an associate of respected mobster Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel). Starting out as a chauffeur and graduating to assassin, Frank proves himself loyal to Russ. Meanwhile, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) runs the powerful Teamsters union, and authorizes pension fund investments in mafia-backed projects.

When Hoffa's position is threatened by rival Tony "Pro" (Stephen Graham), Russell dispatches Frank to prop him up, and the two men become close friends. The appointment of Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General causes Hoffa no shortage of trouble, and he eventually lands in jail. Upon his release in the early 1970s Hoffa insists on wrestling back control of the union, but his behaviour starts to antagonize powerful mob figures, placing Frank in an awkward position.

Reaching deep into the heart and soul of the epic gangster film, Martin Scorsese rolls back the decades and assembles a grand ode to the genre. The Irishman carries echoes of The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America and Scorsese's own Goodfellas and Casino, but also makes its own mark as a more sombre, contemplative effort. Style, pizzazz and moments of violence underpin the drama without overwhelming it, the emphasis instead placed on men perpetuating an era and then looking back upon it.

Given free rein by Netflix to nurture and create his vision, Scorsese adapts the 2004 non-fiction book I Heard You Paint Houses (a mob reference to blood-splattered walls) by Charles Brandt, chronicling Frank Sheeran's startling life-long association with the mafia and Hoffa. The film runs for 209 minutes covering events from the 1950s to the early 2000s, but thanks to the stellar cast, a powerful Steven Zaillian script and nimble editing, The Irishman earns its length and never drags.

Scorsese's focus is on strong male characters grappling with necessary relationships, friendships and betrayals over the years. Crusty and cut-throat as they are, the men nevertheless forge bonds of respect, reciprocity and loyalty within their crime ridden world. Frank nurtures twin affinities with Russ and Hoffa and over the years becomes an essential communication bridge, the one person trusted by both the mobsters and union boss. His status transforms from enviable to tenuous as personal and business interests diverge.

The conflicted emotions buffeting Frank's life provide the film with a rich central character, and Robert De Niro delivers one of his best late-career performances to convey the complexity of a man comfortable with killing but yet craving and valuing meaningful interpersonal bonds. De Niro and Scorsese use the film's eloquent denouement to fully round out Frank as an old man using his remaining time for reflection, pockets of regret competing with pride.

Russ Bufalino emerges as the most compelling secondary character, Joe Pesci coming out of retirement to exude the quiet disposition of power. Jimmy Hoffa is more broadly drawn as a scrappy boss who perceives the Teamsters union as his own business. Hoffa has no individual identity without being at the helm, and as a result Al Pacino is constrained into a loud, shouty and repetitive performance.

The three lead actors play their characters across the decades, and superimposed digital technology is used to de-age their faces for the early years. It's a semi-successful experiment: the images appear seamless, but the combination of young faces and clearly old bodies and postures is incongruous.

Despite the mammoth length, Scorsese shortchanges the men's families. The women and children remain unfortunate afterthoughts, occasionally dipping into the narrative to pull on the strings of contrition before dropping right out again.

But The Irishman does not disguise its intentions as an intimate portrait of a few hard men painted on a huge canvass of time. Their business was crime and manipulation, their roles fulfilled according to the underworld code where cooperation yields wealth just as stubborn impedance means death.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: My Cousin Vinny (1992)

A courtroom comedy, My Cousin Vinny finds good laughs in the story of a scrappy Brooklyn lawyer rising up to the challenge of defending his wrongly accused cousin in the deep south.

While on a road trip through Alabama, friends Bill Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell Whitfield) are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and arrested as prime suspects in the murder of a convenience store clerk. Bill recruits his Brooklyn-based cousin and fledgling lawyer Vinny (Joe Pesci) as his defence lawyer. He arrives in town with long-suffering fiancee Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei), and admits to have never been involved in a murder case nor even appeared in court.

Nevertheless Vinny convinces Judge Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne) of his qualifications by bending several truths. Up against prosecutor Jim Trotter (Lane Smith), Vinny appears out of his depth and is repeatedly jailed for contempt, with Mona Lisa bailing him out every time. With several witnesses claiming to have seen Bill and Stan flee the murder scene, proving their innocence will be Vinny's challenge of a lifetime.

The initial plot construct required to land Bill and Stan in a heap of trouble is contrived in the extreme. But once the script by writer and co-producer Dale Launer gets past the required set-up and director Jonathan Lynn unleashes the duo of Vinny and Mona Lisa on the small fictional town of Wazoo, Alabama, the fun starts in earnest.

Bill and Stan are essentially sidelined for the entire second half, Vinny and Mona Lisa take over, and the strength of the movie resides in the partnership between the long-engaged bickering couple. He is the fast-thinking ambulance chasing injury lawyer about to pretend he knows something about murder cases. She is sarcastic, bored and under-appreciated, and a sight to behold in a succession of over-the-top outfits and hairdos. Together they banter in broad Brooklyn accents, with an undercurrent of love and mutual appreciation holding them together - barely.

To build up tension for the climactic court battle Launer colours in plenty of local character. Vinny and Mona Lisa tangle with the locals, but more memorably cannot find a place to sleep that is not interrupted by one calamity or another before the crack of each dawn.

Once the action moves to the courtroom My Cousin Vinny soars in both drama and comedy. While maintaining a light touch and accessible arguments, the film is lauded (and used as an educational tool and reference point) for accurately representing the tactics and nimble thinking required to engage on evidence and expert witnesses.

And to Launer's immense credit the story contains no evil antagonists. Judge Haller, prosecutor Trotter and sheriff Farley (Bruce McGill) are all simply doing their jobs. Vinny is the disruptive fish out of water, and he is just trying to do his best.

With the case balanced on a knife's edge Mona Lisa finally gets her moment to shine, and Marisa Tomei delivers triumphantly unexpected testimony from the witness stand, grabbing the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in the process. My Cousin Vinny claims the title credit, but it's the woman in his life who deservedly steals the spotlight.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Home Alone (1990)

A family Christmas comedy, Home Alone strikes all the right tones in a tale of a kid forgotten behind at the most magical time of year.

In a Chicago suburb, the McCallister family prepares for a Christmas vacation trip to Paris. Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is the smart but exasperating eight year old youngest son, generally overlooked by his parents Kate and Peter (Catherine O'Hara and John Heard) and tormented by his siblings. With the family chaotically extended by the presence of Kevin's ornery uncle and his brood, no one notices burglar Harry Lyme (Joe Pesci) disguised as a police officer scoping the soon-to-be-empty house.

In the travel day rush the family bundles off to the airport and then onto the plane with Kevin forgotten home alone. He has to fend for himself, keeping a wary eye on spooky neighbour Marly (Roberts Blossom), and gradually realizes Harry and his partner Marv (Daniel Stern) are intent on burglarizing the house. On the plane Kate awakens to her blunder, and once in Paris immediately starts the long trip back. But unscheduled travel arrangements during the Holidays will prove a challenge.

Writer and producer John Hughes turns his attention away from teenagers and towards the younger kids. Maintaining his sharp wit and ear to the ground, Hughes conjures up a Christmas classic in a story where be-careful-what-you-wish-for applies to both the kids and adults.

In the lead up to the Paris trip Kevin makes a nuisance of himself by just being a kid, but his unintended mess results in hot emotions and sharp words. Kate banishes him to the attic, out of sight and out of mind, and Kevin wishes his whole family would just disappear already. Both their wishes come true, as the next morning the family is free of Kevin's presence and he awakens to an empty house, sure he was responsible for everyone's disappearance.

With director Chris Columbus capably translating Hughes' vision to the screen, what follows is a journey of redemption for Kate, and she has to overcome every conceivable travel nightmare to make it back to her son as soon as possible. Her trip will include a travel leg in a U-Haul van with John Candy's legendary (sort of) polka band, Hughes elegantly tying Home Alone with 1987's Planes, Trains And Automobiles.

Meantime Kevin is growing up in a hurry, confronting fears including the boiler in the basement and the mysterious neighbour-with-the-shovel. But worse is to come, the bumbling burglar duo of Harry and Marv absolutely intent on hitting the prized McCallister house (Hughes never quite explains how this family came to live in a luxurious mansion). Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are admirably dedicated to the doofus antagonists roles, and add immeasurably to the film's madcap physical humour.

Home Alone reaches a quite hilarious climax with Kevin concocting a defence of the house to thwart and humiliate the robbers at every turn, in the hope help will arrive in a true Christmas miracle. Here Hughes even manages a nod to the intervention by the misunderstood next-door presence from To Kill A Mockingbird territory.

With Columbus cajoling a superlative and ridiculously appealing performance out of young Macaulay Culkin, Home Alone ticks along in perfect harmony with the spirit of personal growth through family appreciation, laughing all the way.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Betsy's Wedding (1990)

A boisterous comedy, Betsy's Wedding finds laughs by refreshing the story of a father overwhelmed by his daughter's impending nuptials.

Eddie Hopper (Alan Alda) is a contractor based in Long Island, New York, and married to Lola (Madeline Kahn). Their daughter Betsy (Molly Ringwald), a budding fashion designer, announces plans to marry boyfriend Jake (Dylan Walsh), who comes from a wealthy family. Despite mounting debts, Eddie gets carried away and offers to pay for a lavish wedding event.

With money pressures mounting, Eddie turns to his brother-in-law Oscar (Joe Pesci), a sleazy developer and slum landlord, for help. Oscar is cheating on his wife Gloria (Catherine O'Hara), who in turn is surreptitiously profiting from Oscar's business dealings. Oscar connects Eddie with mobster turned investor Georgie (Burt Young). Soon enough, Georgie's nephew Stevie Dee (Anthony LaPaglia) starts an exceedingly gentlemanly romantic pursuit of Eddie's other daughter Connie (Ally Sheedy), a police officer.

Directed and written by Alda, Betsy's Wedding is inspired by Father Of The Bride, and almost as good. While Betsy is essentially reduced to an observer in her own movie, Alda embraces the surrounding madness. The film is all about the insanity that swirls around the main event, and Alda finds plenty of wacky characters and unexpected events to throw at the screen. And with a strong cast and no crass body fluid jokes to be found, this is a classier comedy that scrupulously avoids the lowest common denominator.

Oscar is the husband of Lola's sister, but still close enough to the family to gradually occupy the eye of the storm. With Joe Pesci in fine form, Oscar, whether intentionally or not, opens up the door to mobster mayhem as first Georgie and then Stevie Dee become central players in Eddie's life. Burt Young imports all shades of knock-off Godfather colours into the film, unsettling Eddie and eventually thrusting him into the twilight zone of mafia drive-by shootings.

Meanwhile Anthony LaPaglia steals the movie already stolen by Pesci. Alda deserves credit for clever writing that allows Stevie Dee to shine as a genuine gentleman despite his dubious roots and the gun in his jacket. He pursues his love in courteous style and persistently sets about melting the heart of the tough-as-nails Connie.

Elsewhere enough is going on to maintain admirable energy. Oscar thinks he is hiding an office affair with his assistant who invites herself to the wedding, while all along his wife Gloria is gaining her revenge through shark-like financial dealings. Meanwhile tensions mount between Betsy and Jake, her liberal upbringing and wild fashion sense disturbing the conservative sensibilities of his parents.

The film is just the right length at 94 minutes, and the editing is exceptionally sharp: every scene ends exactly when it should, and not a second later. Betsy's Wedding is not a smooth affair, but it's a memorably chaotic event.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Joe Pesci

All movies starring Joe Pesci and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Raging Bull (1980)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

Betsy's Wedding (1990)

Goodfellas (1990)

Home Alone (1990)

JFK (1991)

My Cousin Vinny (1992)

Casino (1995)

The Good Shepherd (2006)

The Irishman (2019)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

A New York gangster epic spanning 35 years in the life of two friends, Once Upon A Time In America is Sergio Leone's final film, and a masterpiece of provocative storytelling. The extended director's cut (with restored footage) clocks in at a mammoth 251 minutes, and it's a fascinating viewing experienced, reminiscent of a complex ancient tragedy with central characters both heroic and deeply flawed.

The film unfolds in three different time periods concurrently: 1920, the early 1930s, and 1968. The narrative starts in 1932, with gangster Noodles (Robert De Niro) being hunted down after having seemingly betrayed his pals and long-time criminal associates. He evades capture, but is surprised to discover the gang's stash of $1 million in emergency cash missing. He buys a one-way ticket out of New York. Close to 35 years later, Noodles returns to the city, drawn back by mysterious messages suggesting there is unfinished business for him to attend to.

In flashbacks to the dusty streets of Lower East Side Manhattan in 1920, a group of Jewish kids are forming themselves into a gang consisting of the scrappy Noodles and his friends Cockeye, Patsy and the youngest Dominic. They pass their days committing petty crimes and evading policeman Aiello (Danny Aiello). Noodles has a crush on the relatively sophisticated girl-next-door Deborah (Jennifer Connelly), whose family runs the local diner where her brother Fat Moe works. In contrast to Deborah, the local slut-to-be is Peggy, and she affords the boys their first sexual experiences.

The lanky Max moves into the neighbourhood from Brooklyn, and becomes quick friends with Noodles. Together they plot a path for their ragtag bunch to gain more influence, which results in confrontations with older and more established street thugs. After one such skirmish, Noodles is caught and imprisoned for 12 years. The grown up Max (James Woods), Cockeye (William Forsythe) and Patsy (James Hayden) welcome back Noodles when he is released in 1931. Max has forged the young men into a slick group of criminals, profiting from the illegal alcohol trade as well as prostitution and assorted other criminal activity.

Noodles reconnects with Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern), who is now a budding dancing star, and he also quickly reintegrates back into the gang as they get involved in a high stakes jewel theft with crime boss Frankie (Joe Pesci) and disgusting Detroit mobster Joe (Burt Young). Max and Noodles begin to clash over the gang's direction, with Noodles wanting to remain more independent while Max chases the riches afforded by association with powerful men like Frankie. Noodles stages an elaborate date with Deborah that starts well but ends in disaster, and finds some alternative comfort in the arms of the willing Eve (Darlanne Fleugel). Max embarks on a relationship with good time girl Carol (Tuesday Weld). When the end of Prohibition draws near, the schism between Noodles and Max grows dangerously wider.

Based on the autobiographical book The Hoods by Harry Grey, Once Upon A Time In America is Leone's ode to the American dream through the lens of friendship, social turmoil, violence, crime and a shrouded mystery that will serve as a final punctuation mark. The film had a troubled release history, with an initial studio-butchered 139 minute North American version rendering the film incomprehensible. The initial 229 minute European release was Leone's original vision. Some 30 years later, the painstaking restoration of 22 essential minutes for the extended director's cut further elevates a masterpiece of grandiose filmmaking.

Playing off the themes of his Dollars trilogy, Leone remains fascinated by the relationships that form between men on the wrong side of the law, where concepts of honour and trust are relative and friendships are created on the run and threatened by the shadow of the next big score. The core story is the bond between Noodles and Max, forged in childhood, finding a common ambition, surviving Noodles' stint in prison, and then hitting the rocks of unbridled greed.

For Max being a middling criminal with comfortable wealth is not enough, he wants to reach for the brass ring of unconstrained power and enormous riches. For the more grounded Noodles, winning the heart of Deborah is more important than all the money in the world, and when her love proves elusive, taking any more risks seems pointless. The relationship between the two men ruptures in the worst possible way, with judgement day for both awaiting more than 30 years later.

The pace is slow and deliberate, but the movie never fades. This is effectively three rich films in one viewing experience, and by presenting the story in non-chronological order, Leone reveals the ties that bind across the decades. Scenes rarely linger for too long, and when they do, there is good reason: young Patsy confronting a cupcake on a staircase and carefully weighing the benefits of an expensive dessert against sex is a dazzling reminder of the crevasse between childhood reality and adulthood aspirations.

The movie carries a tone of sad nostalgia in each of its three eras, with the recreation of the bustling Lower East Side Jewish neighbourhood circa 1920 a particularly brilliant visual feat. The brooding Manhattan Bridge is used as a stunning backdrop to the ramshackle origins of Noodles and Max, while Ennio Morricone conjures up one of his best music scores, and it's all in the key of sad.

For all the human drama, this is a film about criminals, and when it's time for violence, Leone does not hold back. Characters are tortured, beaten senseless and summarily executed, there are stabbings, close-range shootings, and plenty of violence involving women and children. A prolonged, harrowing rape scene is physically painful to watch, emphasizing a criminal's hopelessly shallow understanding of the difference between romance and dominance.

Robert De Niro and James Woods create an enduring pair, both actors at the top of their form and delivering seminal performances. Woods holds back just enough of his intensity to create the undercurrent of menace that drives his character's brashness. De Niro finds the space where a kid turns to crime to climb out of his low status, but has no social skills to thrive in middle class domesticity and no desire to go looking for anything more.

The early formative scenes benefit from some terrific child performances, with the personalities of Noodles (Scott Tiler), Max (Rusty Jacobs), Cockeye (Adrian Curran), Patsy (Brian Bloom), Dominic (Noah Moazezi), Fat Moe (Mike Monetti), and Peggy (Julie Cohen) all created seemingly effortlessly by the young cast. And most impressive is Jennifer Connelly in her big screen debut at 14 years old, managing to outshine Elizabeth McGovern in defining young Deborah.

At over four hours long, there are bound to be some missteps. An essential sub-plot involving union boss Jimmy O'Donnell (Treat Williams) seems to have suffered most in the editing room, while Joe Pesci's Frankie is also a character who has undue influence compared to his limited screen time. But these are minor quibbles. Once Upon A Time In America is an audacious feat, a gangster film that manages to be both intimate and flamboyant, and easily among the most monumental achievements in the history of film.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Casino (1995)

Inspired by true events and real-life characters, Casino celebrates Vegas before it was scrubbed clean and gentrified. Martin Scorsese delivers another intense, if not perfect, journey into the intriguing and violent world of Crime Inc.

Expert handicapper Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) always possessed a talent for making money from gambling. In the early 1970s his mid-west Mafia associates, backed by the Teamsters, reward him by giving him his own Las Vegas casino, Tangiers, to run. Ace operates a tight joint, weeding out the lower class criminals, disposing of cheats, and maximizing profits, becoming a well-respected man about town, in as far as Vegas respects any man.

Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) was Ace's extremely violent sidekick on their way up in the shadow of the criminal world, and Ace is not thrilled when Nicky also relocates to Vegas. Ace meets and marries professional hustler Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), a gorgeous but money-hungry gold digger with an unhealthy attachment to small time hustler Lester Diamond (James Woods). Eventually Ace's life begins to unravel: he insults the wrong local power brokers and runs afoul of Vegas' licensing requirements; Nicky's violent methods reflect badly on Ace's business; and Ginger looks to rob him blind and make off with their daughter.

Further developing the visual style of GoodFellas, Scorsese directs the front end of Casino with plenty of colour, movement, and panache, the intermittent narration by De Niro and especially Pesci adding sharp humour and plenty of personality. Scorsese recognizes in the sights, sounds, underlying sleaze and unbridled greed of Vegas the perfect playground for criminals looking for a veneer of respectability as they rake in the easy profits.

The last third of Casino slows down to a lumbering pace, the disintegrating relationship between Ace and Ginger sucking the life out of the movie. The crime and casino elements take a back seat to the interminable melodrama of Ginger betraying Ace at every opportunity, his refusal to decisively kick her out of his life a blot against his otherwise sharp judgement.

Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci play against each other with ease born from intense professional familiarity. After Raging Bull and GoodFellas, Casino represents their third collaboration with Scorsese, and once again the characters of Ace and Nicky share a destructively dependent relationship. They need each other yet manage to also repeatedly trade biting insults and hurtful betrayals. Casino lives off the energy of De Niro and Pesci, the former eager to transition from a life of crime to the appearance of respectability, the latter more interested in maximizing profit in a city that rewards abject criminality.

Ginger probably represents the pinnacle of Sharon Stone's acting career, and she deserves credit for holding her own opposite De Niro and Pesci. Ginger embodies the single weak spot that Ace has, and Stone grabs the role with relish, earning herself a nomination for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Ginger's obsession with materialistic wealth and ability to manipulate men perfectly fits Stone's screen persona, with the added spice of Ginger having a blind spot of her own in the shape of Lester Diamond. The relationship between Ginger and Diamond adds undeniable tension to Casino, but it's non-development also represents a lost opportunity.

At nearly three hours, Casino does overreach the scope of the available material. But the better moments leave a lasting impression, and while the movie does not deal a royal flush, it delivers a full house.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Raging Bull (1980)

The true story of middleweight champion boxer Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull chronicles a life that passes through boxing's glory and agony. Single-minded ambition combined with a dense self-centred personality and an inability to connect with anyone except at the business end of a fist ensured that LaMotta experienced the highs and the lows with equal intensity. Raging Bull is also a career highlight for Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese.

We meet Jake (De Niro) as a young fighter in the early 1940's, as he slowly makes a name for himself in low-level bouts. From a poor Bronx background, Jake has a short temper and suspicious personality that allows him to easily abuse his first wife and maintain only an edgy relationship with his loyal brother Joey (Joe Pesci). Jake has a thunderous punch and the ability to survive terrible beatings without being knocked-down.

His reputation rises with a series of victories, and his personal life seems to take a turn for the better when he courts and marries Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a young beauty from the neighbourhood. Jake believes that he is good enough to earn a title fight, and has the ambition to match his uncompromising fighting style. Never knocked down but with a mixed record, he takes on Sugar Ray Robinson in a series of fights that enhance his standing in the boxing world.

Despite blatantly throwing a fight to appease local crime lords, he eventually becomes world middleweight champion. But even at the top of the world Jake's insane jealousy means that he can trust no one, least of all Vickie and Joey. From the heights of success he has a long way to fall, as his personal life collapses and his career ends with mounting weight problems. He opens and operates a nightclub, but this lands him in jail after he unwittingly allows young girls to prostitute themselves out of his establishment. The story ends in 1964, with Jake establishing a niche for himself as an after-dinner entertainer.

Scorsese directs Raging Bull in brilliant black and white and using almost exclusively mid-range and close-up shots, as he delves deeply and at close quarters into the life and emotions of LaMotta. The movie is about the thin line between the forces that govern spectacular success and stunning failure; and boxing as a perfect metaphor. LaMotta's combative power and determination took him to the top; his inability to relate to others except through the lens of confrontation ensured his undoing. Scorsese makes sure that his cameras are never far from any of the forces, and LaMotta's life is portrayed as equally brutal inside and outside the ring. The graphic scenes of boxing violence are brutally intense, the black and white cinematography enhancing the sweat, blood and agony of close quarters combat between men of monstrous willpower.

De Niro gives one of the performances of his career, convincingly bringing LaMotta to life from a young man to a chastened but unremorseful fallen hero, capturing the right amount of drive and human failings without ever appearing to act. Filled with honest brooding intensity, the performance earned him the Academy Award as Best Actor for 1980. Opposite De Niro's LaMotta, Joey and Vickie are the only other major characters in the film. Joe Pesci became a leading character actor with his performance as Joey, and established the outline of the persona that he would perfect in GoodFellas ten years later, also alongside De Niro and Scorsese. Cathy Moriarty's debut as Vickie is memorable but unfortunately relatively statuesque.

Raging Bull is a timeless classic, the story of man's sometimes desperate struggle to control the potent conflicting forces that lie within, and that can both construct and destroy destiny.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: GoodFellas (1990)

Based on the true story of New York mafia gangster Henry Hill, GoodFellas is a sprawling, entertaining epic that covers three decades in the lives of colourful criminals.  While GoodFellas lacks the gravitas of The Godfather, it makes up for it with irresistible personality.

It's 1955, and teenager Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) is growing up in Brooklyn, living in an apartment across the street from a taxi office that in reality is a front for mob boss Paulie (Paul Sorvino). Henry is excited by the prestige and wealth of the mobsters, and over the years he graduates from doing odd-jobs for Paulie's crew to participating in crimes, and grows into the role of a wise guy in Paulie's inner circle. Other criminals with emerging reputations rotating around Paulie include Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). Jimmy is smooth, calm, and viscous when needed. Tommy is loud, unhinged and volatile, capable of switching from funny to deadly in an instant.

Henry ultimately proves his value by helping to plan and flawlessly execute the theft of a large amount of money from an Air France office. He moves into the big time of flashy cars and slick clothes, gets married to Karen (Lorraine Bracco), and is quickly cheating on her with barely discreet mistresses.

While the life of crime seems to have few downsides, trouble is lurking. Tommy's temper is out of control, and in 1970 he kills a made man, usually considered untouchable, from the Gambino family. And when a shakedown in Florida goes wrong, Henry is sent to jail. Upon his release and with his lifestyle threatened, he becomes a full-fledged drug dealer, despite Paulie's warning not to. With drug money rolling in and now himself an addict, Henry is quickly back to the big time.

In 1978 Jimmy, Tommy, Henry and many other men from Paulie's crew pull-off a multi-million dollar robbery of a Lufthansa office, but the enormous amounts of money cause stress between the men, and they turn on each other. Jimmy starts a clean-up operation, eliminating most of the participants in the Lufthansa heist. Tommy is killed in a hit arranged by the Gambinos. And in 1980 anti-narcotics agents finally catch up with Henry's drug operations, forcing him to make a choice between certain death and full disclosure.

While The Godfather series focused on the upper echelons of mobster families, GoodFellas takes us to the street level, and to the lives of the wannabe men who do the dirty work while wearing expensive clothes. It's an engrossing movie, filled with rich characters, memorable scenes, comedy, drama and violence in perfect balance.

Despite being based on real people, the three main characters in GoodFellas are all larger than life. Relatively unknown at the time of filming, Ray Liotta captures the centre of the film with an affecting performance as Henry Hill, on a remarkable journey from wide-eyed hanger-on to a wild-eyed, drug-addicted desperate mobster. Robert De Niro is surprisingly and effectively controlled as the scheming Jimmy, who emerges as the most calculating member of Paulie's gang. And Joe Pesci gives a most memorably stunning performance as Tommy, a hypnotic package of dynamite that may explode at anyone, anytime and for any reason. It's impossible to ignore Pesci when he's on the screen, as in every scene he's either already in the centre of the action or about to make sure that he creates a maelstrom around him.

Scorsese directs with an emphasis on continuous kinetic energy, and his use of freeze-frames is terrific, but unfortunately limited to the earlier scenes. His screenplay, co-written with Nicolas Pileggi and based on Pileggi's book, keeps the action humming for 146 minutes of running time, while squeezing in as many F-bombs as possible.

Despite lives drenched in crime, GoodFellas succeeds in presenting Henry, Jimmy and Tommy as characters who would be thoroughly entertaining to invite for dinner. Whether anyone lives to finish the meal would be entirely up to Tommy.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: JFK (1991)

A brilliant movie, and a dangerous one.

After watching JFK, it is difficult to believe that anything other than an elaborate conspiracy was responsible for the 1963 assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Director Oliver Stone weaves together a narrative that is fictional yet so compelling, incriminating the military-industrial complex, the mafia, the Cubans, the Dallas police and Mayor's office, all the way up to Vice President Lyndon Johnson, with alleged trigger man Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) playing nothing but the patsy, as he always claimed. Only the President himself, it seems, was unaware that the President was about to be assassinated.

And this is where Stone's case really crumbles like an elaborate castle built on air. His conspiracy theory ends up pointing the finger at hundreds of people, in a classic throw-all-the-mud-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach. Not only would such a plot be much more incredible than the lone gunman story, on closer examination, most of the case that Stone builds is based on half-truths that are stretched several degrees past reality.

It takes some time, but it is worthwhile to go through the patient debunking of most of Stone's thesis, for example as presented on the website One Hundred Errors of Fact and Judgment in Oliver Stone's JFK. Only then does it become clear how dangerous a movie can be in influencing opinion by just slightly twisting or expanding every factoid.

Setting that aside, JFK is marvelous entertainment. More than three hours zip by as Stone uses dazzling cinematic techniques, combining menacing documentary style back and white scenes with a vivid recreation of the entire assassination in Dealey Plaza, interspersed with the re-imagining of Oswald's story and that of the myriad of shady yet colourful characters implicated in the mind of the conspiracy theorists.

The focus of Stone's narrative is New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner). Three years after the assassination, Garrison opens an investigation into Oswald's activities in New Orleans. Garrison is quickly engrossed in the assassination case to the point of obsession, and gathers a team of investigators to track down all leads related to Oswald. As Garrison's family life starts to suffer and his wife (Sissy Spacek) is ignored, Oswald's acquaintances in and around New Orleans come to life through the investigation, including mysterious characters like bushy-eyebrowed David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), gay and rich Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), g-man Guy Banister (Edward Asner), sleazy lawyer Dean Andrews Jr. (John Candy) and the criminal Willie O'Keefe (Kevin Bacon). They are all presented as somehow related and working either openly or secretly for various government departments not happy with Kennedy's policies.

Garrison is helped by a deep-throat type source presented only as X (Donald Sutherland), a Washington DC-based colonel in the US Air Force with his own strong doubts about the lone gunman theory.

The performances from the star-sprinkled cast are excellent, with Costner doggedly determined as Garrison. The recognizable faces in every role add to the quality and entertainment value, and even the odd couple of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon have small roles, although never on-screen together.

Garrison eventually hauls Shaw into court on charges of participating in the conspiracy to assassinate the President. Although there is very little evidence tying Shaw to anything, Garrison uses the courtroom as a megaphone to present an elaborate, grand conspiracy theory. Shaw is acquitted, and Garrison is humiliated, other than in the eyes of those who see conspiracy where incompetence is much more evident. The real conspiracy that needs to be investigated is how Stone managed to turn myths and half-truths into such a captivatingly terrific film.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.