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"When you dance with the devil, you wait for the song to stop."
Audiences have been flocking to theaters to watch gangster movies since before the introduction of "talkies," enticed by the opportunity to be a tourist in the violent world of career criminals without any of the risk associated with the reality of the lifestyle. The genre has been dominated by the stories of desperate Italian immigrants struggling to make it in America and Italian-American mafiosos who temper their ruthlessnes with strict codes of conduct, such as in The Godfather, considered the second greatest film in American cinema by the American Film Institute.
But, the "face" of gangster movies has become less defined in the past two decades as America has become more diverse and moviegoers more accepting of foreign imports. Modern masters like Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma continue to elevate the genre by perfecting it, while innovative filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Takashi Miike have helped to broaden the genre by refusing to be slaves to gangster movie tropes. Hide your stash, check your clip, and help us choose the latest, greatest gangster movies.
Top 10 Best Gangster Movies of the Past 20 Years >>
Posted 11.08.12 by BrentJS -
Director Guy Ritchie rose to fame with movies like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch as much for his innovative direction and editing as for the intricate plots and colorful characters that populated those movies. In his latest picture, Sherlock Holmes, Ritchie employed a filming technique that the titular star, Robert Downey, Jr., said included "the strangest direction" that he "ever got on a film set."
Guy made it clear we were going to do something called Holmes Vision. You see Holmes’ vision of a punch before he delivers it and then you see the real thing. For the slow-motion fighting scenes, Guy used to tell me to try a take where I was punching through peanut butter.
In Ritchie's movie, as in the books by creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes is an accomplished bare-knuckle boxer, something Ritchie had experience shooting previously in Snatch with Brad Pitt's memorable "pikey" character. For his part, Downey, Jr. said that portraying Holmes as a brawler wasn't much of a stretch for him as an actor.
I’ve been studying martial arts for the past six years and love bare-knuckle boxing. This was just a choreographed version of what I know how to do.
Sherlock Holmes also stars Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Strong.
Posted 12.26.09 by BrentJS -
"Okay, we know Transformers: Return of the Fallen is out," you say, "but what blockbuster is there for me, someone who’s already seen Megan Fox’s rack and isn’t a racist?" Into that breach steps Public Enemies, recounting the pursuit of legendary pirate Willy Wonka Dillinger by noted law-and-order type The Batman. Here are the top 10 gangster movies you should watch to psych yourself up for Johnny Depp rocking out with his Tommy gun.
Posted 07.01.09 by reelz