By the Gun - Zeit der Vergeltung

As written by Emilio Mauro and directed by James Mottern BY THE GUN is another Boston Mafia flick, but this one is a bit more sensitive to character development and conflicts of the gang world than most. Perhaps most of that is due to Ben Barnes very exceptional portrayal of the lead character, but kudos must be passed around to a supporting cast that is less concerned with star turns then depicting the miasma of Mafioso life, perhaps the most dysfunctional concept of 'family' ever created.

Nick Tortano (Ben Barnes) is a smooth-talking, ladies man, ambitious criminal from the streets of Boston. After years spent working for and idolizing the Italian gangsters he finally proves himself to the boss Salvatore Vitaglia (Harvey Keitel) and becomes a made man. However, once inside, Nick conflicts with a moneymaker for the Mafia and begins to drive a wedge between him and Boss. In the sidebars, Nick's 'driver' is the fat but fearless George Mullins (Slaine) who makes Nick's initial difficult kill for him, Nick's real father (Paul Ben- Victor) and younger brother Vito (an impressive turn for Kenny Wormald), a love affair with Ali Matazano (Leighton Meester), and various conflicts with Salvatore's enemies. There are some fine minor character roles by Toby Jones, Ron Komora, Tully Banta-Cain, William Bloomfield, Richie Coaster and others, but basically this is Ben Barnes film –a confused young man who makes some wrong choices but does so in a manner that keeps our compassion.

Not a great film, nor does it pretend to be, but for a small Indie look at the autopsy of the Boston Mafia it fares well.

Here is the thing, mafia films are more or less dead. This film had a good storyline, locations used gave the film a very convincing feel. You had a mix of very well known names and known names. The rhythm of the film was good as well. It had all the right ingredients for a excellent film. But unfortunately whoever wrote the dialogues and casted people surely didn't consult each other. Most of the very intense moments of the film had long dialogues and the characters playing the roles could not bring any intensity to the situation. And once again a good at heart stuck in the criminal world is not really ideal either. All the old mafia films were good because they went all the way good at heart or not. They generated that feel and compassion that they want to a part of mafia. This is a mafia chick flick at the best. Anyways with some shorter dialogue in hyped up scenes would have done the justice to the talent in the film. Or a better cast with the same dialogues and a bit bold director, who wasn't scared of leaving the good guy routine behind, could have made this film work.

Just my opinion.

Three stars only because of the performance by Slaine as Nick's friend. This movie is comically bad. Every time you see the lead character he is either lighting a cigarette (he lights no fewer than 5 cigarettes in the opening scenes alone), or tossing a long, freshly lit cigarette out a car window. It almost seems as if somebody in production decided Nick looks good with a full Marlboro 120, but not with one that is half smoked. If it didn't mean sitting through this mud again, I'd love to go back and see exactly how many times a cigarette is lit by either Nick one of the other one dimensional wannabe gangster characters. At any given time somebody is flipping open an old school zippo and doing a Fonzarello routine lighting his smoke. The only saving grace in this film is the performance by Slaine as Nick's best friend. This guy is extremely watchable in this role (and lights up the screen instead of a smoke).

Watched this last night, hoping to see something along the lines of, well, good acting. I was bitterly disappointed. To call the lead wooden, would be an insult to trees. Awful script. Awful direction. Awful acting. Awful..........just awful. Harvey Keitel does his best, but he must have known this was going to be a Krimbo turkey from day one. Painful to watch, and I can only hope whoever cast this recovers quickly.Low budget boredom from start to finish, with unbelievable dialogue. Wrong Turn at Tahoe, makes this film look like what it is, a cheap, no thrills D movie.I implore you, gentle film viewer, to give this one a wide, wide berth. To sum up, do not waste your precious time!

There's nothing essentially new in this piece. Despite that it is still a worthy movie, and will please fans of mob dramas. It's extremely well cast, better, I think, than the recent Gotti. So it comes across as genuine, with plenty of evil types, and these horrible men contrast well with the selfish and naive lead, all giving really good performances with an edgy and convincing script. The soundscape is minimal yet brooding, and works well. The sub-plots of love, friendship debt and family relationships gel really well with the overarching theme. It all leads to a rather surprising conclusion that was excellently done. My grips with it are that the promise of establishing shots that this film would include good cinematography never really materialised, though some of the down and dirty locations were well chosen. It certainly has that poorer suburbs of New York look down pat, like the Sopranos sometimes does, or movies like Black Mass. By The Gun is not an original idea, but it is really well made and the actors here have definitely risen to the occasion.