For many man (and women) the gangster genre is a firm favorite. The protagonist are bad guys you’ll still feel sympathetic for. You believe in their dream to be the richest/best/most powerful, where they are willing to do anything to realize it. The gangster has a life full of risks and is part of a close group of people they trust to face any danger. Here’s my list of my personal favorites. Continue reading
I think everyone knows the situation where you’ve bought a book/game or movie which you bring open, lay down somewhere and not touch it for years. This used to happen quite a bit (although less now) to me and lately I’ve been going through some of them as it’s a shame to have unopened stuff lying around. Recently I decided to read a book I bought years ago, The Rough Guide to Gangster Movies. It’s a genre I really enjoy watching so I was looking forward to reading about gangster movies I might not have seen yet.
Although that number turned out to be not that high (as I saw quite a lot of gangster movies from the thirties and forties), there was one title which I had never heard of: Billy Bathgate. Not a title you would immediately associate with gangstermovies, but when I read that Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci and Bruce Willis all were in it I was wondering why I never heard of it. Continue reading
Jacques Mesrine (played by Vincent Cassel) was a well-known criminal during the sixties and seventies. He did robbed banks, but also did other criminal activities. These two movies try to show the way Mesrine lived his life.
The first movie starts at the end of his life. He’s been declared public enemy number 1 in France and when the police find him they execute him, after which we go back in time, starting with his job in the French army. Continue reading