Mobsters (1991)

Somewhat of an excuse to throw together four hot young actors of the moment in a serious environment, Mobsters nonetheless is a decent treatment of the rise of four of the most infamous gangsters of the 20th century. Christian Slater and Patrick Dempsey play Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky, respectively, best friends since they were kids on the mean streets of New York. When Prohibition hits, these young ambitious hoods--along with Bugsy Siegel (Richard Grieco) and Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor) make their move to take over the rackets, even as it jeopardizes their friendship. Featuring cameos by Anthony Quinn, Michael Gambon, and F. Murray Abraham, Mobsters is a guilty pleasure if a not too serious one. --Robert Lane Amazon.com

ok not great

As a fan of the Mafia genre of movies, this is by far at the lower end of the totem pole. The actors could have been better, as well as the script. But at the same time there are far worse movies out there. Over all the movie is mildly entertaining, but in no way is on the same level as the godfather or goodfellas. May 21, 2008

Mobsters

This movie is one of the more realistic movies to date. It is more of a biography of a man that is not as well known as Al Capone from Chicago. Not only he created a organized commission of all mob families which is not part of this movie, he was also was a patriot to the United States of America, even though he was native to Italy. He help the Navy with protecting the New York Harbor, and the envasion of Sicily during World War 2, which was were he originated from. Even though he was a man that did bad things he still helped us a in time of need. So this movie is in high recommened to history buffs that enjoy historically accurate movies. May 11, 2008

An OK telling of the rise of Luck Lucian and pals, but glamorizes them far too much

While this is an entertaining telling of the rise of Lucky Luciano, Myer Lansky, Benny (Bugsy) Siegel, and Frank Costello, it has the flaw of making them seem like rough and tumble fraternity members rather than the murderous monsters they really were. Still, given the material and the approach of the movie, Christian Slater (Lucky), Patrick Dempsey (Lansky), Richard Grieco (Siegel), and Costas Mandylor (Costello) are good in their roles. Two really nicely done performances are Michael Gambon as the vicious boss of all bosses, Don Faranzano and Anthony Quinn as his rival Don Masseria.

Since this is a movie about Depression / Prohibition era gangsters you would expect some violence, sex, and other immorality and the movie does provide them, but not in as extreme a way as more recent movies. I am not claiming this is a virtue or an excuse, just letting you know what is in this film.

The story takes us from the four gangsters as kids and seeing their lives in their ethnic neighborhoods and seeing their parents struggle under the heels of the Black Hand, corrupt politicians, and paid off police. Instead of deciding to fight against this and clean up the system, they decide to become a part of it and carve out their own niche on their path to money, power, and the carnal life. The movie ends with their finally achieving the top rung of the mobster career path as still relatively young men.

This is an ok movie and if you are into this sort of thing you might enjoy this. But I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
April 17, 2008

Good movie, ok video quality, lacking in extras

I missed, or forgot this movie if I had seen it back when it was originally released (1991), but grabbed the HD DVD and sat down to watch it.

Other movies have spotlighted some of the characters from this 'based on the stories of...' movie, including Bugsy, etc., but this movie ventures into the origins of some of the bigger figures in organized crime from the early 1900's. It is also, as noted in the comments clipped by Amazon above, an excuse to put 4 hot young actors (at the time the movie was made) into these roles.

The movie itself it is ok with the story interesting and entertaining, but the experience on HD DVD does not live up to the 'look and sound of perfect' that I would expect. The film is ok, but not great and there are times when the image is disturbed with some noise or dirt in the field of focus. Not horribly distracting, but there to be seen at times.

Sound levels weren't bad and didn't suffer from problems of getting too loud or too quiet throughout the feature (as some discs definitely frustrate me with).

Extras are basically non-existent on this release. Some biographical information on the real figures would have been great, some making of of the movie information could have been included, but instead there's nothing.

If you like the movie, this might not be a bad purchase, but it seems underwhelming to me. January 11, 2008

They rose from nothing to rule everything.

I was surprised at how much I liked this movie!

It is a story of 4 childhood friends that became the most infamous gangsters of the 20th century. The partners are Charlie "Lucky" Luciano (Christian Slater), Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey), Bugsy Siegel (Richard Grieco) and Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor). These enterprising young men wanted to make some money during prohibition and made deals with Mafia bosses (Anthony Quinn & Michael Gambon) to move their product. The movie shows the pitfalls of dealing with the Mafia and what these 4 friends (they remained close until they died) did to survive, all the while getting deeply involved in the gang itself. This film made you sympathize with the four young gansters rather than hate them for killings they did. We got a good glimspe of life on the mean streets of New York during the 1920s.

This movie also holds a special place for me. My sister and I owned a flower shop in LA in the early 1990s. We knew the Property Master on this film and he hired our shop to do all the flowers---especially in the wedding scene. We had to research wedding flowers in the 1920s and it was hard to find information on this then. We originally used real flowers, but Anthony Quinn, kept wrecking his boutonnier. We then had to recreate (exactly) all arrangements using silk flowers. What a chore that was for the shop to do, but the money we made was great---no complaints!

I never saw the movie until now. While setting up the flowers, I got to see it being filmed, so I remember bits and pieces. I was surprised at how good this story and movie really is. If you liked the Godfather series, you'll like this film. This is not as good of a film, in my opinion, as the original Godfather, but well worth viewing. Anyways, buy, watch and enjoy this film! November 17, 2007

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