Must See Movie...

Good movie but grossly overrated

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Really good gangster film for a change, although its not got lots of violence and Hollywood glamour - which makes a lot of those types of film a bit unbelievable and formulaic, the film is essentially about three friends, who take different paths in life, but who remain friends. One dabbles with the gangster seen, one settles down to a blue collar job and start a family, one goes to college. A situation develops which draws them all into a violent and tense stand off, which I felt was believable and done well. The ending is a little predictable, but that doesn't really matter. Good film, good characters.

...especially since the first billed is Freddie Prinze Jr.I was at my friendly neighbourhood DVD retailer and saw this on sale for two bucks. I like Alec Baldwin so I thought Id give it a go.The premise itself isn't terribly original - Its a coming of age type story meets a mild Goodfellas - but aside from the occasional eye-rolling moment it is well acted and beautifully shot.Alec Baldwin is great as Ceasar and appropriately over the top. Freddie Prinze Jr, Jerry Ferrara and Scott Caan all do fine jobs as well.Again, its nothing we haven't seen before, but its definitely worth the two bucks and certainly respectable enough to add to your DVD collection.

This is obviously one of those gangster movies to tries very hard to be just like "Goodfellas". But instead of focusing mostly on one character it has three of them. Problem is, there is absolutely nothing good, interesting or original ever happening in the movie. It's a real lackluster movie that lacks at basically every department.Bad writing, bad directing, bad acting, bad editing. The movie is suffering from all these things. Really, I would had been OK for this movie to 'borrow' from other genre movies, if it would had been only done in a good and original way. This is obviously just not the case with this movie.The story really isn't going anywhere, or perhaps it feels that way because it is so clichéd. You basically know beforehand what is going to happen in a scene and how things are going to end up eventually. The story is far from an involving one really because we just never really get into any of the characters. The movie tries to present the three main characters as just average guys, who due to circumstances get caught up in bad situations and get tangled in with the underworld. But thing is, they don't come across as average normal guys at all. They each have their own very clichéd and cardboard, forced personalities. Here we have a sweet guy, a bad guy and a in-between guy, basically. It's also odd how the movie throws in some uninteresting plot-lines for them and then decides to completely focus on them. I mean, when I watch a gangster flick I'm just not that interested in seeing a guy trying to make it at school. The movie could at least had been more interesting if it focused on the Scott Caan characters instead of on the Freddie Prinze Jr. one.And watching Freddie Prinze Jr. acting tough really made me laugh. It really isn't working out very convincing in this movie. He just comes across as a guy who got bullied himself at high school but now he is acting as the tough guy in movies. It's laughable really and his acting comes across as horrible because of this. He is really miscast and Alec Baldwin totally feels out of place as well. I just kept waiting for them to finally do something interesting with his character and they could and should had easily made him an important part of the story but he only shows up a couple of times and to be frank, it feels a bit forced all because his character really doesn't add that much at all. To me, this was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the movie, since I am quite fond of Alec Baldwin and was interested in seeing him in this type of role. With only a few minor changes this movie still could had been a decent one, at it's very least, to watch. Besides different casting and changing the focus of the movie they could had made things a bit more raw and edgier. After all, this is a gangster movie but the movie doesn't really feel as one at all because there is nothing interesting, crime-wise, or violence-wise happening really. Why not put in a big criminal kind of plot, like an heist or hit or something. I'm just making this stuff up as I'm writing this, then how come the writers of this movie didn't think about any of these things. They knew they were writing a gangster movie right? Perhaps it was due to budgeting reasons but this movie is totally lacking the right atmosphere. They could had made the movie moodier if they made the movie a bit more dark to watch. Now it really feels like you are watching a cheap television-series episode. Just a couple of things that would had made this movie so much better to watch.A real pointless and redundant genre effort, that is lacking at every department. Yes, there are far worse movies to watch out there but that doesn't mean that this movie is a good one either.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

So here we have another mobster movie with a great list of great actors. Set in the 80s the costumes have a bit of tasteless gestures and some actually hit the mark with authenticity. The background music works well and so do the neighborhoods throughout the films.I was surprised to see pretty boy Freddie Prinze Jr. in this mobster film. I was so used to the childish films he had paraded around for such a long time to forget he has a narrative tone of acting. He played an honest student trying to do his best to escape the tortures of a rough and tumble Brooklyn neighborhood.Alec Baldwin gives a steadfast approach to the head mobster lifestyle by smacking a few locals around in the beginning. We see what the character assembly is going to produce throughout the film just from the short descriptive narratives.Jerry Ferrera plays the lovable sidekick friend that is conceptually frugal and down on his luck in unemployment. Scott Caan plays the most realistic character because in my most humble opinion, he has played this stereotypical role in every film I have seen him in. It's the Napoleon Bonaparte complex character that gets all the wheeling and dealing early on and gets his kicks from well, kicking people to the ground. It's characters like him in this film that really take it to another level. His acting is superb ,the love is genuine ,and sometimes you feel the scenes were ad libbed. Mena Suvari was an unconvincing student femme. She lofts around throughout the film carefree until the s*** hits the fans and then she turns against Freddy's character. She could have easily been knocked off in the script and nobody would've missed her. While she was entirely necessary to the script and in proving a friendship motif, I didn't enjoy her performance.Overall this movie hits the target. It's not another classic mobster makeover but in it's own way reinvents the story and leaves room for a few other younger actors looking to get their beaks wet in this genre.