This Thing of Ours (2005)

Absolutely Brilliant!

Absolutely brilliant

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I know well this low-budget, badly-made, crazily violent V crap that you meet in video stores so dusty on a deserted shelf, or find on TV always late at night without many ads during it. Thank god, this time it wasn't that crap, and surprisingly it got a meaning as well.Hollywood mob movies lately are nothing but Scorsese' pieces with a historical look (Goodfellas, Casino), the shoot'm up fares (Snatch), and the spoofs (Jane Austen's Mafia!). Now (This Thing of Ours) is just a humble movie that doesn't have the true stories, the stars, or the great factors yet it's surely still watchable.It's a nice time. I liked the structure of this script, it's solid. The idea of the heist was truly wild. The soundtrack was primitive yet a bit interesting. Although most of the cast are the minor actors of Scorsese' movies, but oh my god they did so well, especially Frank Vincent who fitted in his role finely as the boss. Some of the rest did BAD. And of course I'm talking about guys like the one who played the role of the police officer, now OH MY GOD what a criminal! This guy looked like someone who escaped from the audience after torturing them in his high school's play (and it's better for you pal to continue running !). While Christian Maelen was the one who looked charismatic the most, the 3 leads weren't the best actors altogether, delivering deadly usual work. However I can't blame them fully, since it's not about acting in the first place. The whole deal is about the heist and its consequences, not about the deep characters or something of this sort!Some points bothered me. I mean what was the need to see that haughty businessman got beaten in his office for money he didn't pay ?! I think we all know, even from other movies, that these guys aren't joking about being rough, so it's not a thing to design a couple of scenes just to assure it !!Plus, there was no style at all. And I'm not talking about Scorsese here, but the axiomatic things. The artistic personality of the movie is so poor. The camera-work got all the time an easy way to do all the matters without making a fine suspense or leading certain feeling. I felt usual, sometimes low, TV all over it. Simply it got nothing to embody anything. While the dialog was nice and natural, I just felt something wrong with the way most of the characters were shown. Do these Italian-American still look like this? Because if Scorsese is right then these people are still talking and dealing exactly the same since the 1970s! In a word the stereotypes were just PURE and MANY !..And that's why James Caan got to be this old-fashioned, board, paralyzed godfather. He maybe knew that there is nothing that new. So he got to be at least special. In fact the presence of Caan is the only coup de maitre this movie achieves, not only because winning his name on the poster (and maybe selling the whole movie due to it), but also for the way his persona was used; since Sonny Corleone himself became, in this movie's world, that helpless non-respected old news. The last scene was an epitome of this movie's real condition. It's meaningful but without very much depths. It's dramatically important but with so modest TV-ish carrying out. And its acting was between good and half good! Well, this is exactly the mistake that this movie does; putting a bit promising stuff in so clumsy hands. Just damn. The crisis of that lead could have been something more attractive whereas he would live without friends anymore or even allies if he got out. But sure this is something to watch in any other movie but this ! It was about a successful heist, then beating the police, the enemies, and the moral choice itself. I loved that it got a meaning anyway about doing the perfidy to be trusted, where family and friends – in the new mafia's, rather the new age's, laws – are not needed as the money or with the money, namely the movie's rule of "no connections". But I believe that the true no-connections this movie has was between its story and any artistic embodiment whatsoever. So clearly "this thing of them" needed a lot to be more sophisticated and glossy.

If Spike Lee had been born Italian, in a New Jersey family, his first film would have been "This Thing of Ours." Of course, it goes without saying that Spike probably wouldn't have survived producing such an effort while also dealing with a 40+ count Federal Indictment. I've seen a bit written by armchair pundits who simply don't understand film, but want to take shots at "This Thing of Ours." In all the supposed "critiques" they offer there isn't a grain of true intellectualism, much less informed opinion. Film and literature are limited to describing a few key life conflicts. In Danny Provenzano's film "This Thing of Ours", the conflict begins as a typical story of man vs. man. But, instead, as it progresses, as the character development proceeds, we see that the film is actually a more moral driven story of a series of man vs. himself conflicts. The final conflict faced by Danny Provenzano in the lead role, is the most piquant of those internal conflicts. It is also a moral tale, lamenting that any of us may lose what we most value, the love of friends and family, in the pursuit of goals we have already committed ourselves to. Loyalty and this love are critical driving forces for Provenzano's tale. A secondary theme of what happens to, or is deserved by those who betray their friends, consistently recurs throughout the film. One might think that Danny himself crosses that line in the anti-climax, where as a 'made man' he is forced to choose between love of friends, and his own future. But life doesn't give one the chance to go back and rewrite its script so that Danny's character can avoid such a choice. Life is real, ugly, and often brutal. The ethical choices we each make to survive define us, but just as certainly, they separate us from lower life forms like rats.To begin with a more formal academic critique, "This Thing of Ours" combines elements of both cinema verité and film noir. One gets a feel that one has been dropped into the reality of a NJ crime family, but unlike The Sopranos, time is not expended on "explaining" the incipient milieu to the viewer. Instead, like a Spike Lee film, one either : understands the milieu, embraces it, and immerses themselves within it, or they simply don't get the film. Some have been extremely petulant about the tendency of the film to move back and forth between broad general action and specific individualist elements. But serious students of film will notice the skilled use of a Diltheyistic approach, one that depends upon Dilthey's "Hermeneutic Circle." In other words, the movement takes the viewer back and forth between the implicit and explicit, as well as between the particular and the whole. Only through weaving across both, can a viewer suddenly immersed in a new and unfamiliar environment begin to develop a Weltanschauung (or World View) appropriate to the new setting. "This Thing of Ours" succeeds in giving attentive and/or critical viewers that opportunity. But, this choice is inherently risky. Just as many viewers simply "didn't get" Spike Lee's early efforts, many, including many who should get "This Thing of Ours," simply complain about the film. Sadly, they are displaying their own lack of experience and comprehension for the medium of film they seek to critique.Yes, the portrayal of the FBI as wholly and completely inept is a bit absurd, and perhaps the film's weakest element. But the human tendency is to dehumanize and marginalize one's foes. Not coincidentally, with Provenzano during filming, underneath FBI driven investigation and indictments, it is not in the least bit surprising that he would use film to lampoon them. Need I remind anyone that while the Bush White House portrayed Saddam Hussein's Iraq as completely incompetent, they also claimed Iraq had highly advanced nuclear and chemical weapons programs in operation? One isn't about to make one's mortal enemies look attractive or competent. In the anti-hero tale, that is "This Thing of Ours" the bumbling FBI is an appropriate foil; as much so as were the bumbling agents of the church faced by the Three Musketeers. Finally, something needs to be said about the skillful use of cinematography in creating the proper atmosphere and feel for the recounting of Provenzano's tale. While there were no iconic Citizen Kane moments, there is a darkness, and reality-inspired Kubrick-like seediness throughout. Beneath all the glamour and glitz, the decay and moral rot is always apparent. When one directs themselves, as Orson Welles did in "Citizen Kane" some kudos should go to the director of photography, in this instance George Mitas, as they bear a greater portion of the creative role than in many other projects. Mitas' choice of shots and on-screen viewpoint, places us where we need to be: wholly within the world of this film.In conclusion, one will get "This Thing of Ours" if they have the intellect to expend on entering Danny Provenzano's cinematic world. Spike Lee's earliest efforts were panned by many on the very same grounds I've heard "This Thing of Ours" critiqued. Mr Provenzano should be nothing but flattered by such criticism.

please spare me this was straight garbage did anyone listen to the soundtrack or notice bullet holes before the gun sounds only a straight groupie male or female could enjoy this crap i rather have my wife nagging at me all day then watch this again and the acting other than the familiar faces the rest of the cast was horrible did they just grab these guys form the street of Brooklyn Howard beach Pelham bay in DA Bronx or something don't waste your time watching this the 2 hours will be wasted and you cant get time back better off running errands or something than watching this fake mob movie that only mob wanna be's would appreciate

gzzzzzzz......i note a bit of hostility! alot of time and effort went into this film which should be appreciated in this industry. There is also an abundance of talented people associated with this film. In addition alot of no name talents were given an opportunity to shine and shine they did! Pls. be patient as this sight is being updated for all who took part to be given proper credit.