Knockaround Guys

Born the son of a powerful, fearsome Brooklyn crime boss, wannabe mobster Pepper recruits low-rent pals Diesel, Green, and Davoli to make a routine delivery, impress his old man, then finally go into business with him. Unfortunately for the young man and his pals, they get stuck in a bleak little Montana town where violence, mayhem, and every other thing that can go wrong eventually does. It's no Goodfellas, but this watchable, well-crafted little mob story is easy to take, and goes a long way on its appealing cast and dark, profane sense of humor. The only major let down is the story which, while interesting, lacks momentum and builds toward a familiar conclusion. A not bad showing from the film's young and old cast alike, especially Pepper and Diesel. **½

Knockaround guys tells the tale about four guys wanting respectfull work from a mob. Matty (Barry Pepper), Taylor (Vin Diesel), and Marbles (Seth Green) are the main and interesting ones who end up losing $500,000 of the mob's money and must find the money within 2 days or the mob is in huge trouble. All the performances are greatly acted and the story (although a bit slow at times) is exciting. Vin's tallent is showing that he's going no where, but up! Barry Pepper delivers a surprising performance as the mob's son. Seth green is funny as always and a good character to add to this 2 hour ride of near garenteed enjoyment. IMDB.com shouldn't have rated this 5.9 out of ten because this movie deserves much higher, almost an 8. Watch this movie if you're a fan of crime dramas, comical action flicks or Diesel fans and you'll truely get a kick out of this flick. 7.2/10- my movie pro rating

Loved this movie! It's the type of movie you'd want to see more than once; so much of the humor is so subtle that it's easily missed. Deals w/ the next generation of baby mobsters, & how much has changed since "back in the day". Performances by Pepper, Davoli & Green have a surprising depth; their characters are so immediately recognizable that it's almost scary. As a strong Diesel fan, I have no complaints at all about the Taylor Reese character. Diesel's moody acceptance of his position in life & his lack of options, is gloomy, but believable. The strong point of the film is the loyalty & love the characters have for each other. It gives a true nobility to characters who mainly live outside the law.

See it twice. No, three times!

rating: 8 out of 10 (Okay, I really mean 9!)

Almost all of my recent reviews have been very negative, but this movie is worth watching if you are a Vin Diesel fan.

Summary: Matty is the son of Benny, a mobster and he is as bad as they come. As a kid he is put to the test of killing someone, but fails, therefore his father keeps him away from the life of a mobster, but now as a grown up, Matty can't get a job anywhere due to his father's reputation, which gets on his last nerve. So he decides to talk to his father about letting him work for him. Benny puts him on a task, to collect some money in a bag and to come back with it. Doesn't sound so difficult. Matty meets up with his childhood friends, Scarpa, also a son of a gangster, but trying hard to concentrate on his restaurant, his cousin Marbles who has always been the screw up and Taylor, the guy that everyone brings in when they need to scare the heck out of someone. So Marbles has a plane, he gets the money, but in Montana he lands for gas, only there are 2 hillbilly cops there, that intimidate Marbles, as he feels they are on to him and during his panic he puts down the bag of money with other luggage that is being put on another plane. Only he is too late to retrieve the bag so he calls upon his friends to help find the missing bag, which didn't make it to the other plane...so who took the bag?

Seth Green plays the messed up Marbles, who wants responsibility, but doesn't know the meaning of the word. Vin Diesel was great in this movie as a tough guy Taylor, he played his part perfectly. John Malkovich was the ruthless right hand of Benny and he was great! As for the roles of Matty and Scarpa, they were ok. The plot was a little weak, but got better after the first 20 minutes or so.

I rate this movie 7/10.

You can feel about two ways when you're watching this movie. Either you make yourself very angry about all the stuff this film steals shameless from other classics in the genre...or you can just sit back and enjoy and don't bother about all the rip-off elements. When I saw it, I was in a 'sit back and enjoy'-mood so my thoughts on this are rather positive. This film is well made and contains all the elements you expect. Like I said, some things are stolen obviously ( the execution GoodFellas-style, the True Romance shoot-out at the end...) but there are at least as much good things to tell about it as well. This film may count on a class A cast. Especially the older generation is great. John Malkovich, even when this guy is acting half as good as he usually does ( like in this movie ) he is still very entertaining. And naturally, Dennis Hopper and Tom Noonan are good as always. There's also a lot of talent in the younger generation: Barry Pepper, Seth Green. And this is even Vin Diesels best film ( besides Saving Private Ryan, but I'm not counting that one) Vin doesn't have too much lines, so that's positive. Overall, this film will be forgotten soon, but it's enjoyable while it lasts