mobster – alan williamson

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

Centering around a hit man, who models his life and philosophy around the ancient Japanese Samurai warrior living and operating in New Jersey, sees himself the target of the local mafia who take hum bridge for a hit that left a loose end.

Forest Whitaker plays the self titled, Ghost Dog, who lives on a roof top caring for his homing (or as they call them in the USA ‘passenger’) pigeons. It is through these pigeons that he signals his master, or handler who hands him out the various jobs he has to do. He works off a retainer, paid annually, to keep the paperwork to a minimum I imagine.

The movie is full of long lingering thought provoking scenes which sets the tone of the main character. This man who has decided to live in the shadows and follow a moral code that highlights just how unjust the world is. He witnesses many incidents as he dredges through his days. This would be great, if it wasn’t for the Key Stone cops mafia that are pitted against him as his foe.

I mean they are just comical but unintentionally so. Every single American-Italian cliche you can think of, its here. The godfather figure (Henry Silva), who says very little, but looks intensely before giving his orders, to the old cripple side kick, who shouts racist and obscene rants that everyone must tolerate. For some reason, these lot always meet in a Chinese kitchen with the owner demanding rent from them! Add in the running theme of them all being addicted to old cartoons on the TV. It is just stupid.

Stupid, because it detracts from the excellent and intense performance from Whitaker. He does his role perfectly, but deserves a much better gang to go up against. There are some questionable scenes that you wonder, what the hell was that for. The one that comes to mind is when he bumps into two hunters who are struggling to load a shot bear into the back of their pickup truck. Adds nothing to the overall narrative.

How does one sum up this movie? Could have been excellent but fails to deliver because of the supporting cast. Was hoping for far more for my 60th movie in this series.

Viewing Date
Saturday, 17th October 2015

Rating
6/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Road to Pedition (2002)

Before

Sam Mendes became one of the hottest directors to take on James Bond, he cut his teeth on gritty dramas, with a sprinkling of action. Road to Pedition is set in the early 20th century at the time crime bosses ran the cities. The story (loosely based on the real life mobster) evolves around the inner circle of mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman) whose solid right hand hit man, Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) goes on the run to protect his family when his young son witnesses a hit.

Newman plays the perfect patriarch, in his last full feature role, conflicted with the business to which he runs and the moral boundaries he sets to live by, trying to walk that fine line between real family and those that have earned the right to be blood through their continued dedication and loyalty. In the end however, real blood is thicker.

Hanks, as usual, puts in a stellar performance but this role doesn’t feel natural for him. This is a bad man. He does bad things. Yet he comes home to his family in the evening and pretends everything is normal. His wife,

Jennifer Jason Leigh, is fully aware of his real job, but she too puts on the fact face for the sake of the children. This is not the good-guy role that Hanks comfortably wraps himself within and it shows that this is not a natural state for him.

This movie is laced with big names, including Mr James Bond himself Daniel Craig,

Ciarán Hinds,

Stanley Tucci and a very young

Jude Law. Though he wasn’t that young when he starred in this movie, he still looks very fresh faced playing the crime scene photographer with a sinister side (again based on a real life character).

The movie did very well in the box office, from a $80M budget taking ultimately $180M world wide. The budget was very large for the time, considering there wasn’t that much special effects or big stunts. However, when you just take in the beautiful sets, you can see where the money was spent recreating the 1930s.

For its fantastic cast, the movie plods along with a predictability that any seasoned movie fan will be able to spot without any effort.

Worthy of a watch if only to see how well Hanks, Craig and Newman play together in a scene.

Viewing Date
Friday, 18th September 2015

Rating
6/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Kill Me Three Times (2014)

This popped up on Netflix and I will confess to not knowing about this Simon Pegg comedy thriller he made last year in Australia. It isn’t the best of his output and one can’t help but feeling he was lending his name and box office draw to this rather low budget local country movie.

The gist of the movie has Pegg as a hitman that witnesses a couple who is attempting to kill someone off and he gets in on the action, hoping to get the insurance money himself. Being Australian, we have the usual cameo from their very own veteran dignitary, Bryan Brown of Cocktail fame, who is wheeled out of retirement to give some meat to this rather lame effort.

Sadly it fails to deliver on a number of fronts, no funny lines and no specific scene that has you reaching for the rewind button. If I didn’t know it was being billed as a comedy, I would have been convinced I was watching a series thriller.

Best to avoid unless your Netflix queue is completely empty.