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I had wanted to see DEUCES WILD when it was out at the theatres, because who wouldn't want to see a film about rival gangs in 1950's Brooklyn? But I had to wait for it to come out on DVD and VHS. After viewing it, I was kind of left with mixed emotions. On one hand you've got Stephen Dorff giving an awesome and intense performance looking like a young Bruce Willis (DIE HARD not "Moonlighting"). And you've got an equally impressive role from Brad Renfro, who has come along way since his last role as a New Yorker in SLEEPERS. On top of that you won't be able to take your eyes off Drea de Matteo, who looks even hotter than she does in "The Sopranos". But despite these great points I just couldn't get that bad taste out of my mouth, which was a result of all those damn cliches. Cliched characters, cliched dialogue, cliched plot structure, etc. The film ultimately comes off like a silly cross between THE OUTSIDERS, STREETS OF FIRE (you remember that Greaser movie with Rick Moranis and Wilem Dafoe?), and of course WEST SIDE STORY. I also think there was a small case of miscasting here, I mean with the exception of Matt Dillon and Balthazar Getty what are these guys supposed to be Italian, Irish, what? Anyway the film is only mildly entertaining because of its rather brutal fight scenes. Other than that it just could of been so much better with a couple more rewrites of the script and someone else to play Marco. By the way, I'm really getting sick of these movies that get you all hot and bothered and then fail to deliver the goods.

Anyone who has seen The Outsiders, Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale or Last Man Standing doesn't really need to watch this film because you've already seen it. The line up here includes a very promising cast of Steven Dourff as Leon, Brad Renfro as Bobby, Matt Dillon as Fritzy, Frankie Muniz as Scooch and Johnny Knoxville as Vince. But with all those characters comes very little character developementand leaves us with a full cast of characters that we don't care about with the small exception of Leon. We start the film with the death of Leon's brother and the imprisonment of Marko, the rival gang leader who gave his brother the drugs that killed him. Fast forward three years, Marko is out of jail and all hell is breaking loose on Leon's once peaceful block, Marko is also making a deal with Fritzy (the head of the block) to get his drugs back on the street and Leon's brother Bobby is becoming involved with the sister of a Viper. This film has everything, the rival gangs (Outsiders), the big show downs (Last Man Standing), the gangster who is in charge of everything (Bronx Tale) and the drug dealing (Goodfellas). But because of this the flim is robbed of any sort of self identity and becomes rather bogged down and boring, leading up to a conclusion that is inevidable because we have all seen it a hundred times before, just better. This film could have been a masterpeice were it put into the proper hands, but Scott Calvert is no Martin Scorsese and Matt Dillon is no Robert De Niro, so we are left satisfied to some extent, but still feel robbed of something. The lackluster direction and enormously cliched script don't help matters any. It's clear director Scott Calvert tried his hardest to be clever but his annoying camera tricks don't suit this movie well at all, in fact some of them are, at time, very hard to watch. The fight scenes are plentiful but lack any excitement due to the horrible choreograhpy and again cheesy camera movement making it hard to tell who is who. Matt Dillon show plenty of promise but is only given four scenes in the whole movie, Johnny Knoxville is a nobody that serves no importance and is hardly noticable and Frankie Muniz hardly mutters a word the whole time. I have always found Steven Dourff to have possessed a certain degree of talent but he has yet to be given a role where he can break free and show us what he is really made of, but he is still, by far, the highlight of the film. Now don't get me wrong, the movie is not a total waste and there are probably lots of people that this sort of thing will appeal to but its lack of originality cancels out any power of emotion and even though we have a cast of characters that I really didn't care about except for Leon, it's an hour and a half of my life that I don't regret.

Ok, it's a rumble movie. It's like LORDS OF FLATBUSH with half the soul. It's WEST SIDE STORY without the song and dance. It's THE OUTSIDERS without the literary writing.

Sure, it's got a boatload of talented young faces, some already established, most semi-established when this released. But the script? Ugh. It's juvenile, simplistic, one-dimensional, mindlessly violent (though not graphic); something lifted from a 1960 "JD" message flick, but with better production values, including color.

I gave it a six out of pity and because I like Stephen Dorff, but it deserves a five. And Brad Renfro? How did so many filmmakers see potential in HIM before he died not long after this?

Bottomline: this is not an awful movie. It's not painful to watch. But it's a youth film that belongs in the 80s, not in 2003. And it doesn't deserve the actors it cast. From the list of actors, I'd guess this was a hot property when it was getting assembled, but subsequently, the writers and director let half the air out of its balloon and repackaged GREASE. Oh, and Norman Reedus? A disheartening case of one-note-johnny overacting in this particular effort.

I gotta suspect that the director let the cast down with mediocre, uninspired directions to the actors.

I liked this movie, it was very unrelenting and dark - The fight scenes are pretty intense especially the last one. A good story about an exploding gang rivalry, there are good performances from Fairuza Balk, Brad Renfro, Drea DeMatteo and others but the two actors from the Blade series really stood out here. I'm talkin' about Stephen Dorff(Blade, Judgment Night) and Norman Reedus(Blade 2, Boondock Saints), they were great in the rival roles of Leon and Marco, they really brought their hatred for each other to life, good job...

This movie was basically just a good guy vs. bad guy movie. Its one of the best that I've seen since the "Outsiders"! Its definatley a movie that should be seen on the big screen! The acting was awesome, and the writers did an excellent job on the script. There are really no upsets in this movie, and no sex or nudity. This is just a good movie that i reccomend!