Vendetta

The story is great, and the actors are very good too. I guess I like the story more than the acting. Though it has no happy ending, but it feels real. Wonderful movie.

Theodore Roosevelt was contemptuous of races and nations he considered inferior. When a mob in New Orleans lynched a number of Italian immigrants, Roosevelt thought the United States should offer the Italian government some remuneration, but privately he wrote his sister that he thought the lynching was "rather a good thing" and told her he had said as much at a dinner with "various dago diplomats . . . all wrought up by the lynching."

This was the attitude of America in 1891. The New York Times on March 14, 1891, published an article describing the events in this film with the following headline: CHIEF HENNESSY AVENGED; ELEVEN OF HIS Italian ASSASSINS LYNCHED BY A MOB. The attitude of the whites in New Orleans can best be summed up by the comments from one businessman, "I would rather have a thousand Chinamen, than one Italian.

This information is critical to understanding the movie, the truth of which is well documented. It was not just African Americans that suffered lynching after the Civil War, many Italians suffered the same fate across the country, but mostly in the South.

Timothy Prager's script hewed very closely to Richard Gambino's book. The performances were outstanding, particularly Christopher Walken, Joaquim de Almeida, and Clancy Brown, in the short time he was on screen. Alessandro Colla and Megan McChesney provided a romantic distraction amid the chaos. This was their only screen roles, and they did very well.

I am grateful to Alan DiFiore, Mark Israe,Sue Jett,Gary Lucchesi,Tony Mark, Nicholas Pileggi, and Gary A. Randall for making this important film.

I loved the movie! It had a great story behind it, and the acting was terrific! As a member of the City of Kingston, I was proud to have lived in the city during the filming period! but then again, thats just my opinion, go rent it, and judge it for yourself, not everyone has the same taste in movies. I was absolutly Superb! Enjoy the show!

Vendetta is a tough film to watch without feeling sadness and outrage, but such is the stuff that HBO churns out, honest pieces of history that sting you with their refusal to honey coat or gloss over the nasty details (I'm looking at you, History Channel). This one takes place in 1890 New York City, a time of mass Irish and Italian immigration which spurred a ton of unrest among those already settled and raised in that area. Everyone is fighting tooth and nail for a piece of the pie and a chance to feed their families, and the ones with a bunch of pie just greedily want more. The influx of Italians is a cause for insidious worry for James Houston (Christopher Walken), an obscenely wealthy and deeply corrupt piece of schit. He's joined by equally nasty William Parkinson (Luke Askew), and Mayor Joe Shakespeare (Kenneth Welsh), as the trio cook up an evil scheme to implicate a few young Italian men in the mysterious death of a sympathetic and kindly Irish police chief (Clancy Brown). This sets in motion a tragic outbreak of riots and and angry acts of violence against the Italians. Even their union representitive Joseph Macheca (Joaquim De Almeida) cannot bring peace or stop what Walken and team have started. You may think why make a film of this, as it heads straight for the bleakest of resolutions, but I think it's important to shine a light on even the darkest patches of history, in order to understand the levels of deception and human cruelty so that we may see it coming before it's too late next time around. This was a terrible, terrible event and the film hits you square in the face with it's blunt truth and unwavering honesty. Kudos to HBO fpr taking it on. Watch for the late Edward Herrmann and Bruce Davison as rival lawyers in the chaos.

This was a fairly interesting historical drama, but the portrayals were so black and white that the story seemed improbable to me. I suspect the true story is a bit more "gray" than the movie suggests. Our politically correct society allows these one sided views only when the "white anglo saxon protestant" male is the villain.