Tag: gangster

ASH IS PUREST WHITE – Review

Liao Fan as Bin and Zhao Tao as Qiao, in Jia Zhangke’s ASH IS PUREST WHITE. Courtesy of Cohen Media.

A searing epic of a gangster couple’s romance set against a backdrop of a changing China spanning near two decades, director Jia Zhangke’s ASH IS PUREST WHITE is an unforgettable journey. Ranging from the spring of 2001 to nearly the present day, we see the shift in ordinary Chinese life in the north, far from Beijing and Hong Kong, from coal mining region and the Three Gorges region, while we follow the lovers’ rocky path. This is a striking epic drama likely to haunt you long after the film ends, a personal story with universal human themes of love, loss and heartbreak told in a powerfully realistic way, as well as a revealing look at the enormous changes in China during their lives.

Jia’s brilliant and moving drama has been a hit at film festivals around the world and has been hailed as masterpiece from an already lauded director, winning the Palme d’Or and Best Actress at Cannes. The story opens in April 2001, with local gangster leader Bin (Liao Fan) and his young girlfriend Qiao (Zhao Tao) in the Mah jongg parlor they run in a small town in a coal mining region. Bin is a big fish in this small pond, fawned over by his gangster underlings and dancing the night away to Western music, while running the gang’s illegal loan sharking and gambling businesses for the area’s older gang boss. The parallels to THE GODFATHER are unmistakable: respect is a big deal, the gangsters call each other brothers, and locals come to Bin with problems. Everything is very formal and organized.

Qiao is Bin’s assistant as well as his girlfriend, and her work as a courier takes her home to the coal mining town where her aging father lives alone. Dad is a sad broken man, still fighting the Revolution by urging the coal miners to rise up against the mine boss, even though coal business is fading and the mine is rumored to close soon. He’s also unhappy with his daughter’s gangster life, but she tells him he must let her go.

Despite her work, Qiao doesn’t consider herself a gang member as much as Bin’s girlfriend. Yet when she talks of settling down, Bin is non-committal. Their conversation proves revealing about both Bin and Qiao’s essential natures as well as their relationship. In another revealing scene, Bin decides to show Qiao how to shoot his illegal handgun, following an attack on him by a couple of young thugs. As she fires the gun, she turns her head away, as if rejecting what she is doing. It is a striking visual moment. The gun later plays a pivotal, tragic role in both their lives.

ASH IS PUREST WHITE spins its tale of a changing China and the characters’ lives side by side, jumping forward in time at crucial moments for both. At one point, the characters find themselves in the Three Gorges region just before the historical villages in the area are submerged by the massive dam being built. Tourists coming to see the area’s sights before they are lost under water mix with lost-looking local villagers being dislocated by the project.

Director Jia Zhangke is a masterful visual storyteller, using striking images and carefully built scenes to draw us into the drama if lives of these two people, as well as the sweeping epic of the wrenching changes the country is undergoing. Where the events take place, the scenes in the background and the minor characters that come and go, say as much as what is happening the characters in the story at that moment.

Although this is the story of a love affair, the real star is Zhao Tao as Qiao, who is really the focus of the story. The actress is the director’s longtime collaborator (and now his wife), and pair create magic on screen, with a character who evolves from a confident girl to a broken soul to a tough as nails woman. While both characters change as their circumstances do, their basic natures remain the same. Liao Fan is perfect as small-time gangster Bin, who projects a tough guy persona but harbors a hidden ego-driven brittleness. The raw emotion of the shifts in their lives and relationship is particularly affecting as it plays across Zhao’s sensitive, expressive face.

Power plays a central role in this story, both literally in the sense of coal, hydroelectric and nuclear and emotionally in the shifting relationship and fortunes of the two characters. The two leads are brilliant in their roles, taking the characters from a kind of cocky innocence to a worn realism, as the actors age from youth to middle age. Zhao is especially good, transforming herself from obedient girl to a self-possessed and masterful woman. She is a joy to watch.

ASH IS PUREST WHITE is a masterwork, an true epic tale of love, loss, change and power in a shifting China as well as heartbreaking, realistic personal story. ASH IS PUREST WHITE, in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, opens Friday, April 5, at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

THE WANNABE – The Review

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It’s rare that I find myself questioning the judgement of Martin Scorsese, but after having seen THE WANNABE, which he co-executive produced with Dean Devlin, it’s inevitable, even if it is short-lived. Directed by Nick Sandow, the film tells the story of Tom & Rose, an ambitious couple, but not well endowed with common sense or street smarts. The film is based upon real-life events that occurred around the trial of mafia boss John Gotti, an unusual case of celebrity obsession, if you will.

THE WANNABE, as silly as the title sounds, is just that. It’s the story of a social outcast who dreams of being a big-shot gangster and tried very hard in his own, pathetic way, to make those dreams a reality, when all it really accomplishes is chaos, death and destruction. On it’s own, this is a fairly generic, albeit not poorly made movie of average entertainment value. The film’s not bad, but it’s also not great. The performances are acceptable, but not inspiring. The direction and technical production are perfectly reasonable examples of what we’ve come to expect from a run-of-the-mill niche genre film such as this is, but there’s nothing that stands up and screams for our attention as a unique cinematic experience.

Tom, played by Vincent Piazza, is the brother of an Italian-American florist names Alphonse, played by Michael Imperioli, but Tom has his sights on a bigger, brighter future for himself. Every ounce of Tom’s being is fixated on John Gotti and the events unfolding as he awaiting judgement by the federal government trying him on charges related to organized crime. Indirectly, Gotti has holds influence over Tom, as a type of mentor or paternal figure.

Tom’s affection for Gotti is unwelcome and discouraged by the gangsters who disowned him and unnoticed by pretty much everyone else. My primary complaint about Piazza’s portrayal is that he’s too desperate, too needy, too pathetic. It’s difficult to imagine he managed to succeed on the relatively small and unimpressive level that he did. Piazza’s Tom feels like an exaggeration of the real-life character that must have been.

Tom is a good guy, but his delusion have misled him down a dark and unforgiving path of misguided hopes and dreams, which in turn lead to an equally dark and unfortunate path when his dreams don’t pan out and he takes the outlaw life into his and Rosie’s own hands without the necessary means to do so intelligently. In short, Tom & Rosie feel like entries in the World’s Dumbest Criminals collection, but we want them to be more like Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

Rose, played by Patricia Arquette, is a slightly older Italian-American woman with a similar mindset and tendency to habitualize drugs as Tom. Arquette’s portrayal of Rose appears to be more of a stereotypical manifestation of the character type than anything truly original or [hopefully] anything truthful to the real person on which the character is based. As a result, it becomes difficult to connect to Rose’s struggle and accept her as anything more than a tragic sidekick or accidental accomplice.

THE WANNABE’s biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that it double dips into source material that’s already been used too recently to justify another film. As they say, nobody wants sloppy seconds, but that’s what we end up with here in Sandow’s film. While other similar films may glamorize the lawlessness and violence, this film accentuates the ignorance of it’s central characters, or let’s just say it… it feeds off of the implied stupidity and festers within that notion, resulting in a two-dimensional cartoon that captures only a portion of the complete human being.

Ultimately, this movie feels like a tabloid version of the story, versus taking a more authentic, realistic approach to two actual human lives that, for better or for worse, made the decisions they made that led to the foreseeable consequences, all of which are predictable and written in modern history, but the audience loses out on what could have been a detailed character study with depth and detail.

In 2014, director Raymond De Felitta released his version of the same real-life story titled ROB THE MOB, a far superior interpretation and much more entertaining film than this, but it’s unfair to make such a comparison. So, I’ll do my best to consider THE WANNABE on it’s own merits and, if you’d like to read my review of ROB THE MOB [despite the equally cheesy title], you can do so here.

THE WANNABE opens in theaters on Friday, December 4th, 2015.

Overall rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

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BLACK SOULS – The Review

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Like many genre films, the category of mafia films is often branded with certain expectations. Granted, not all of these films are created equal, but we generally expect to see lots of violence and/or lots of foul language and Hollywood stereotypes. Where BLACK SOULS succeeds is in refusing such stereotypes and telling a richly deep story about an unconventional “family business” that conjures up the essence of THE GODFATHER but distances itself even further from the genre stereotypes than just about any film we’ve seen in recent years.

Director Francesco Munzi’s BLACK SOULS (“Anime nere” in Italian) maintains a nearly unprecedented level of dignity for its type. The film tells the story of three brothers closely connected to N’drangheta, a mafia-like criminal organization based out of Calabria. These three brothers, sons of a shepherd, have differing views on their relationships with N’drangheta, which plays a crucial role in the telling of their reluctantly interconnected lives.

Rocco (played by Peppino Mazzotta) is a quiet, well-mannered man of means. Rocco is the most successful of the three brother, business-minded and methodical, but seems cautious in his relationship with N’drangheta business and how he conducts himself. Rocco has a nice, big house, a beautiful wife and is the picture of a comfortable, low-key life in this Italian underworld.

Luigi (played by Marco Leonardi) is the brother most typical of what we imagine in an Italian mobster. Watching Leonardi play Luigi is akin to watching Ray Liotta immortalize Henry Hill in Scorcese’s GOODFELLAS. Luigi is proud of his life and his affiliation as a gangster. He’s not stupid. He doesn’t make poor decisions because of this, but he does wear it on his sleeve. This subtle mix of machismo and bravado convey a confidence that makes Luigi likable, but also dangerous.

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Luciano (played by Fabrizio Ferracane) is the eldest brother. He is also the brother with the least interest in the N’drangheta but with the most at stake. Luciano has taken up their father’s legacy as a shepherd, shunning the N’drangheta life as much as he can, but living amidst it and having family ties makes completely disowning the notion an exercise in futility. Pasqualle (played by Vito Facciolla) is currently the “don” in control of power, but is far from friendly with the brother’s criminal family.

When Luciano’s son Leo (played by Giuseppe Fumo) shows an interest in N’drangheta, Luciano attempts to lead him away from danger, but Leo has no interest in farm life and Luciano instead pushes him away. Leo leaves home to spend time with his uncle Luigi, whom he idolizes, and stays with Rocco and his family in Milan. While Rocco is reluctant to officially introduce Leo to the family business, Luigi has no reservations and casually supports Leo’s efforts to wiggle his ways into the family’s affairs.

Leo is drawn to the N’drangheta life like a moth to a light. He looks at the life his father and grandfather led and sees nothing but a prison and has no intent on being shackled to that kind of tradition. Fumo captures the quintessential youthful ignorance associated with being blinded by a desire for fame, fortune and ill-gotten respect. He allows his curiosity to ferment into arrogance and entitlement, like a young Jedi being seduced and corrupted by the dark side of the force.

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Ferracane’s restrained emotional performance is undoubtedly the marquee strength of BLACK SOULS. Luciano is clearly distraught by his son’s ambitious intentions, and bitter about his history and current connection with the N’drangheta, despite his efforts to break clean. Ferracane bottles up this anger and disdain, leading to a highly physical performance. Dialogue plays a secondary role to Ferracane’s body language and facial expression of emotions. This plays beautifully into Munzi’s film.

BLACK SOULS is similarly paced with the racing of turtles, intentionally, and is a surprisingly quiet film. Dialogue is sparse and enjoys long stretches of near silence, perhaps further conveying the underlying theme of loss and mourning, both literal and analogous in nature. A great deal of the character interaction is made through eye contact and gestural interpretation. There’s more to these characters than meets the eye, and their stories go deeper than we, as outsiders, can fully understand.

Despite the slow and silent nature of the film’s structure, BLACK SOULS is a fantastically engrossing portrait of conflicting obligations. Gorgeously photographed and accompanied by a thematically appropriate score by Giuliano Taviani, BLACK SOULS is a sensory pleasure wrapped around an emotionally complex tale of torn souls.

BLACK SOULS (“Anime nere”) opens in New York on Friday, April 10th, 2015, with a nationwide release to follow.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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