Rare Movie Critic
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.
nebk
Gangster Land is a small budget action thriller chronicling the rise and fall of Al Capone and his right hand man "Machine-gun" Jack McGurn (born Vicenzo Gibaldi). The movie is however done in very broad strokes and offers very few factual details and frequently depicts events inaccurately. The acting is relatively fine with the main roles being played by Milo Gibson (Capone) and Sean Faris (McGurn). Jason Patrick, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Peter Facinelli and others act well in their supporting roles. Obviously the movie was done on a tight budget so there are no massive special effects to speak of. The problem with the film lies in the fact that it feels very very rushed and very little is explained. There is the usual look at bootlegging, speakeasies, Thompson Machine Guns and the main character who falls in with the wrong crowd after trying to be honest. So it has all been seen before. The events depicted however are not true as the reality was quite different regarding Jack McGurn. There is also no real mention of the numerous gangs and mobsters involved in the 1920s and 1930s prohibition era gang wars. The ones that are mentioned however are not given any depth due to the length of the movie or lack of. Overall this movie is not the worse way to spend 85 minutes but it could have been much better had attention been paid to accuracy and character development. A tentative 6/10.
gsfsu
Unless you already know the main characters making up the various Chicago mobs of the 1920's and 30's you will most likely not understand this movie. It is mostly a collection of well-known incidents (the St. Valentines Day Massacre for example) and extreme violence along with standard "mobster meets dance joint showgirl" interludes.Because the entire story of the Chicago mobs are not explored in greater detail and the actors don't look much like their real life counterparts it is often difficult to follow the action when one gang is attempting to waylay the other(s). Even the 1950's TV program "The Untouchables" offered a lead-in before each episode that explained a bit about the history. This movie just begins cold.I gave the movie a 3 for the photography, sets and costumes but the storytelling leaves a lot to be desired. Anyone who knows the actual history of gangs in Chicago will wonder why they made this movie.
