Gangster Land (2017)

Just perfect...

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film is done well enough and the story is compelling. The setups are often theatre and the play as well. It is however a good rendering that is probably more accurate than the hollywood threatment so far.

This movie is a jumbled mess. I thought of what went wrong in the film and how it could've been fixed, but in reality, this film should not have been made. This is the very definition of genre fatigue. Before you consider watching this film, I suggest to you reading the filmographies of the director and the writer. The director's films average around 3.5/10. Don't say you weren't warned.Spoilers:The mistakes are plenty - anachronisms, the dialects/language is off, the lighting is abysmal, i.e. daytime TV quality, the story is essentially bad, the acting is bad in two ways - unnatural movement (dying, shooting a gun, falling, etc. reminds me of teenage films on Youtube) and poor line delivery (the breaks between... phrases should be somewhere else), I could go on, but should I? The film also tries to do many things at once and fails at everything. What was the point of the boxing? It then advocates a pro-gov, but anti-big business agenda for the prohibition, but then shows the government, or in this case, the cops, as corrupt and racist, with the mafias as the good guys who just want to serve the working man a cold brew at the end of a hard day of work. The cops use slurs more often than real racists, in a kick-the-dog trope, to establish that they are the bad guys in this film. I'm not sure how the film justifies it though - bootleggers/moonshiners/smugglers are innocent people subverting the system, drinkers are innocent, the gov is free of guilt (it's the Rockefellers that pushed the state to prohibition, according to this film), but the cops, who are part alcohol-consumers, part of the bootleg industry and part of the blameless state are given 100% of the blame.I don't know who this message is for, if the film draws a (imaginary) parallel of gas-vs-ethanol with modern day fossil fuel vs renewables, but there's also a bit of feminism sprinkled in, which is not actually a flaw, but adds to the jumbled mess this film is. The issues are brushed upon and not explored, and the film itself is done in a noir manner, making the issues seem out of place in what is a cheesy revenge flick. I don't know who could survive 3 seconds of two automatic machine-guns firing at him from close range, but our friend the boxer here can, although he was a "still a bit sore" after.This movie appears to be made by someone who is a fan of gangsters, but whose point of reference is gangster movies. It is a cover of a cover of real life.

Let me start by saying, that I went into this movie with eyes open. I have loved gangster films since I was a kid. I can also quote most lines by heart from some of the most famous (no-plugs needed).What I find awful, is that the only basic element that is redeeming about this film, is the movie score. They literally try to use it to mask all the drawbacks of the film in scores of scenes.There are scores of anachronisms in the film (I added one in the beginning of the film about the $100 bills). The acting is B-level at best. The scene of the Valentine's Day massacre with a cheesy one-liner, and over the top yelling by Machine Gun. Mobsters were at times animals, but the lame revenge plot really doesn't do much. Jamie-Lynn Sigler was better in her role as Meadow Soprano than Lulu. The plot lines are weak, and the nepotism of the Gibson name shines with Milo. They really could have basically used anyone to play Capone, and might have been better (I think my high school acting chops might have brought in bigger ticket sales). There is very little in terms of backgrounds and areas to present the landscape of Chicago, rather than a small Hollywood backlot. If the characters had a strong enough presence or view-ability element, then perhaps that would have pulled the movie together.All-in-all, I wouldn't even count this to be a gangster movie, as this would insult even the lower level flicks like Crazy Joe, without even being compared to the modern and classic greats like The Public Enemy, Goodfellas, Godfather, etc.

The fact that the movie promotes Jack McGurn as Capone's second in command tells you all you need to know about the authenticity of this movie. Another movie in which everyone in the world is young and good looking and they all date really pretty women. Oy. Take a look at Capones wife, in reality she was more along the lines of Roseanne. But you got lots of gun play and the costumes are nice so if thats enough for you, you got that.