"Mobsters" takes me back to these early days when my opinion on movies didn't depend on an authority: all that mattered was the enjoyment, the fun I had watching the film alone, with friends or family and in 90% of the cases, my father.
These days there was no IMDb and no Internet, classics and average flicks were watched with the same impartiality. I think my father and I had enjoyed "Young Guns" with the same enthusiasm as a Sergio Leone's classic and I'm not too guilty to declare that we enjoyed "Mobsters" as if it was "Goodfellas". Yes, it sounds silly with some perspective but that was a time when a viewer's mindset wasn't dictated by factors such as critics, ratings or reputation, we let a film grow on us or not.
I mentioned "Young Guns" because in many aspects, "Mobsters" resembles this film, it's an exaltation of youth and friendship based on real-life events with memorable shootings and disturbing outbursts of violence. And I think I enjoyed the film for two of these three aspects, I liked the bond between the protagonists, I loved to know that the four would end up being the most emblematic gangsters after Capone, I loved that the film built my knowledge of an era I always was fascinated with. In my review of "Bugsy", I said: "Bugsy Siegel appeared in two 1991 mob movies, "Bugsy" and "Mobsters", I'm glad I discovered the "lesser" one first, it plugged in my memory names such as Arnold Rothstein, Benjamin Siegel, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky and made my experience of the better film much easier."
Again with some perspective and maturity, I can spot the weaknesses in the film and understand the factors that didn't make it the classic it intended to be (if it ever did), but just because a "Once Upon a Time in America" it ain't (it might not even be in the same league as "The Untouchables") the film has a lot to offer, if only a take on four iconic gangsters at the prime of their physical strength, with an interesting performance from Patrick Dempsey as Meyer Lansky, the man who understood from the start the merit of keeping it low-key and in the shadow. I could believe that that Dempsey would grow up to be the Ben Kingsley's counterpart in "Bugsy", and I appreciate a subtle touch in the poster: he's the only one not to carry a gun. And if Christian Slater isn't exactly transcending as Lucky Luciano, he's not as bad as his Razzie-nomination suggests and his interaction with Dempsey and the clash of their two gangster policies is often fascinating.
These are the men who believed that a new order was to be established, that the time of old Dons channelling Julius Caesar or Il Duce or Commedia Dell' Arte was over and that they had to seal a friendship between Jews and Italians and I guess Irish mob too, the kind of order that prevailed in "The Godfather" before the Turk showed up. "Mobsters", with a sort of delightful obscenity, depicts the two representatives of the old order as despicably as it gets. Michael Gambon is Faranzano, the histrionic bigot who thinks of himself as an Emperor and plays the Don with grandiloquent self-importance while Masseria is a sort of Fanucci with the appetite of a boar. And if Gambon plays it with laughable solemnity, it's fun to see Quinn chewing the scenery as frenetically as a mouthful of carbonara penne. It's really a contest of which "big bad guy" will make himself more detestable and it kind of derails the film from its apparatus of seriousness.
Of course then every attempt to take the film seriously vanishes with Mad Dog Coll (Nicholas Sadler) who's so brutal and sadistic that he makes us forget all the strategic intelligence displayed by Luciano and Lanski. The plot is tricky enough with its set of false alliances, true betrayals and chess-game maneuvers and then we have this little punk causing even more mayhem, showing off, throwing knives, cutting tongues and biting noses as if he belonged to a horror film. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film but because of the two Dons and that Mad Dog, I did with a guilty pleasure.
Indeed, it's sometimes frustrating that a film could fail to deliver as a gangster epic drama and yet have so many palettes of emotions to show, such a great costume and art design, some interesting scenes such as the introduction of Rothstein (F. Murray Abraham), the way the four heroes pick their leader, the scenes between Dempsey and Slater, the ending and even the romance with Lara Flynn Boyle. Maybe the plot was too complicated for its own good or downright savage in its displays of violence but there came a point where it could get as caricatural as "Harlem Nights", a film that I actually enjoyed, except that it meant to be over-the-top.
So "Mobsters" could be a hidden or underrated gem of the 90s but so many iconic gangster movies were made back then that it was lost under the Scorsesian and Tarantinian shadow. Speaking of these guys, I looked at the director's page: Michael Karbelnikoff, and discovered he only made 3 films and he started as a commercial director. And it's true the film has the feel of a commercial, it's all flash and its attempt to add some substance is ruined by too many hammy performances. You could tell Quinn had fun playing the old Don, Gambon too, and don't get me started on Sadler. The irony of "Mobsters" is that it got one thing right:; the heroes casting and they didn't have much occasions to show how good they were. Talk of a wasted opportunity!
