crime – Brandon Talks Movies

Monster

February 24, 2021 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“Yeah, I had a lot of dreams. And I guess you can call me a real romantic, because I truly believe that one day, they’ll come true. So I dreamed about it for hours. As the years went by, I learnt to stop sharing them with people. They said I was dreaming. But back then, I believed it wholeheartedly.”

I’ll admit, I was a little scared to watch Monster. I’d heard all the great things about Charlize Theron’s performance and her transformation into this character, and I’m a fan of writer and director Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), but I was worried that the film would portray, well, a monster—a character without anything to like or attach to. There’s a place for films with highly unlikeable main characters (Hello, Scarface), but they can easily go awry and just not be enjoyable to watch. I’m happy to say I did enjoy Monster—quite a bit, in fact. Immediately, in the opening monologue, I was intrigued by the real-life character of Aileen “Lee” Wuornos, a prostitute and serial killer in Florida in the late 80s and early 90s. Yes, Charlize Theron is great in it, but there’s a lot to like here.

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A Bronx Tale

May 26, 2020 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“I learned something from these two men. I learned to give love and get love unconditionally. You just have to accept people for what they are. And I learned the greatest gift of all: the saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever.”

Crime dramas have been trying to show the gritty realness of the criminal world since, well, always, but it’s rare to have a crime boss that’s portrayed as a genuinely good person, even one that grows to be a better person by learning how to love more. That formula is not an easy one to execute, but A Bronx Tale managed to do just that. Directed by Robert De Niro (yes, that Robert De Niro) and starring Lillo Brancato, Robert De Niro, and Chazz Palminteri, this is a story about love and family just as much as it’s about crime and brutality, and it balances these two opposite ideas very carefully, even more effectively than the original crime family movie, The Godfather. It does this by showing us not a career criminal or family member, but a boy growing up in the Bronx, learning life lessons from both the local crime boss and his working-man father, who refuses to have anything to do with the criminal world. Seeing this teenage boy try to make sense of the two different worlds he lives in is a big part of the unique charm of this film.

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Serpico

March 8, 2020 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“Frank, let’s face it. Who can trust a cop who don’t take money?”

There’s a whole sub-genre of movies about people who stand up for the right thing even when everyone else in their lives doesn’t care. Serpico, directed by Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Murder on the Orient Express) and starring Al Pacino, takes that formula, but it does what few other movies like this dare to do: it’s not afraid to be messy, morally gray, and frustrating. If the combination of Lumet, Pacino, and a morally complex plot based on a true story sounds familiar, it’s because these things came together again in 1975 for Dog Day Afternoon—a testament to how well they worked in this film. Serpico shows us the harsh reality of a world where, even in the police force, morality is not so clearly divided into good guys and bad guys, and the struggle to do the right thing can be painfully tedious.

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The Irishman

December 17, 2019 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“Nowadays, young people, they don’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was. They don’t have a clue. I mean, maybe they know that he disappeared or something, but that’s about it. But back then, there wasn’t nobody in this country who didn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was.”

The crime genre is a prolific one, with many masterpieces already on my list. Among crime film directors, Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas) is royalty. So when it was announced that Scorsese, now nearing the end of his career, would be making another crime epic with acting legends Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci (who came out of retirement for this film), film buffs collectively lost their shit. With Scorsese, Pacino, De Niro, and Pesci having so many great films to their names but nearing the end of their careers (and, let’s face it, nearing the end of their lives), this will probably be the last time we see this director and these actors put out a film like this. The Irishman is a fond farewell to those great crime films we grew up with and loved, and it’s fitting that it deals with aging career criminals coming to terms with their lives of crime and violence. We’ve seen great human depictions of criminals, most notably in The Godfather and its sequels, but there hasn’t been an in-depth look at what happens when these criminals start aging out of the systems they created. That’s a gap The Irishman fills, and it does a brilliant job of it.

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American Hustle

October 16, 2019 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“Did you ever have to find a way to survive, and you knew your choices were bad—but you had to survive?”

Most films go heavy on plot and light on characters, but I have to admit, I’m a sucker for strong characters even when the plot is not stellar. American Hustle, directed by David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, I Heart Huckabees) and featuring an amazing all-star cast including Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence, has amazing characters and performances, even if the plot meanders a bit more than it should. It’s also a ton of fun and a great slice of authentic 70s goodness, even though it came out in 2013. Every character, from the con man to his distant wife of convenience to his brilliant mistress and partner in crime to the overzealous FBI agent, has more vices than virtues, but they’re so complex and fleshed-out that I found myself mesmerized by the characters interacting on screen. If you want a complex and brilliant plot, go watch Chinatown; but if you want a fun film with great characters and style, look no further than American Hustle.

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Mean Streets

August 27, 2019 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.”

With the newfound freedom afforded by loosened censorship laws, the 70s were a Renaissance of crime films. In 1972, The Godfather made a crime family as familiar as your next-door neighbors. In 1973, Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Taxi Driver) released Mean Streets, which brought crime from a family affair back to the streets, where it was untamed, unsafe, and unpredictable. Starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, this film had a brilliant script, strong performances by lead actors, and some innovative cinematography that made the film seem more real than many of the earlier crime films, as well as many modern ones. This is admittedly not the best work in Scorsese’s stellar career, but it was his first masterpiece, and it holds a place in crime film history, paving the way for many later brilliant films.

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Once Upon a Time in America

April 24, 2019June 26, 2019 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

This film has been featured on my podcast, Peculiar Picture Show. You can listen to the podcast episode here.

“I’d have put everything I ever had on you.”

The Godfather (parts 1 and 2) may be the top pick for the epic crime genre, but Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America deserves a mention both for its detailed look at its characters and the enormous scope of the film, covering 48 years of the lives of a few characters. Written and directed by Italian director Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), who had originally been approached to direct The Godfather but turned it down and regretted it for the rest of his life, this was his attempt to recapture some of the greatness that he had passed up earlier in life. The Godfather was a thoughtful film about a crime family, but Once Upon a Time in America has a lot more heart and really shows us the deep connections that formed in the Jewish ghetto of New York City in 1920 and lasted nearly 50 years. This film is not perfect—some of the dialogue is clumsy, the time jumps can be confusing, and the characters are certainly not likable—but this film captures the humanity of getting into, and out of, a life a crime more than any other I’ve seen.

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The Sting

December 26, 2018December 26, 2018 Brandon GregoryLeave a comment

“What was I supposed to do—call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?”

I love a good con. Most modern con movies are so obsessed with being intricate and overly complicated that they lose their touch with reality, with mythical characters with superhuman abilities, unrealistic technological devices that are closer to magic than reality, and eleven, twelve, or sometimes thirteen people essential to the plan. In 1973, The Sting brought the con back to its early cinema roots in the 1930s, and it’s everything I wanted to see in a con movie: cleverness, real danger, and humor. Directed by George Roy Hill (Slap Shot, Slaughterhouse Five) and starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford—reuniting the three of them for the first time since the hit comedy-Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969—this movie was a huge hit in its time, winning the Oscar for best picture as well as several others for cast and crew, and it holds up very well today. It’s intriguing, it’s well-constructed, and it’s fun—what more could you ask for in a con movie?

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The Green Mile

October 23, 2018 Brandon Gregory3 Comments

Paul Edgecomb and John Coffey look at something offscreen in The Green Mile

“I just can’t see God putting a gift like that in the hands of a man who would kill a child.”

When someone mentions a movie with miracles, that usually brings to mind some very specific images: a struggling family, an overly sentimental problem, and a religious leader, for instance. The Green Mile gives us a story showing that miracles can occur anywhere—even in a prison block reserved for inmates on death row, even in the midst of senseless brutality, even among people who can’t bring themselves to believe in a god at all. This film is adapted from a Stephen King novel and directed by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Majestic), and it stars Tom Hanks, David Morse, and Michael Clarke Duncan. This is an outstanding drama that will stick with you long after the credits roll, but be prepared: it’s quite sad at times and downright disturbing in a few spots. In the end, though, it’s totally worth it.

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The Dark Knight

September 11, 2018January 15, 2019 Brandon Gregory1 Comment

“Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

2008 was a good year for superhero films. Iron Man put the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the map, and The Incredible Hulk followed later that year; Hellboy II was a surprise hit; we even got Hancock, an interesting take on the superhero genre (even though it wasn’t that good). But The Dark Knight came along and it made the rest of these films look like child’s play. Best superhero movie of all time is a hotly debated title now, but back in 2008, The Dark Knight was the undisputed winner. Directed by Christopher Nolan (Inception, Interstellar) and starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, this is a smart crime film and a competent action film in addition to a superb superhero film, and it, along with Iron Man, showed the world that superhero movies could have an appeal beyond comic book fans, being artful blockbusters in their own right. This is a brilliant entry in the superhero genre and it will be remembered as one of its great classics.

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