10th & Wolf

It was a mediocre movie with a good cast and lots of clichés. Plot was nice, but predictable and unoriginal. Val Kilmer and Dennis Hopper were simply there for BIG NAME billing and a waste of time. It was also funny to see Tommy Lee in a cameo. James Marsden, Giovanni Ribisi, and Brad Renfro were all excellent and were believable. I don't know, but I think Rocco was played by The Tony Luke, Jr. His roast pork sandwiches are fantastic.

My main problem with the movie is that it was not filmed at 10th & Wolf. I grew up in Philadelphia and it looks nothing like the scenes in the movie. Well, maybe they got a few street shots. There were too many bridges, streets too wide and too clean, and the properties were too wide to name a few examples. Even the scenes on 9th street (outside the butcher shop scenes) were not filmed on the market that I know. It was not just a mediocre movie, but it was a sham.

Tommy (James Marsden) is a Marine threatened with prison after a drunken fight during the Gulf War. It's 1991. Unscrupulous FBI Agent Horvath (Brian Dennehy) recruits him as a confidential informer. His family is connected to the Philadelphia mafia. Mob boss Matty Matello (Dennis Hopper) has been assassinated and Tommy's beloved cousin Joey (Giovanni Ribisi) is the new leader. The New York mob is looking to take over.

This is second tier gangster flick. It feels like it. It looks like it. The filmmaking is strictly second tier level. Marsden is not quite mobster material. I guess that Tommy is not a mobster but it would be better to have some buried mobster within him. Marsden can't do that. Brad Renfro could have done it better. The saving grace of this movie is Ribisi. He is the definition of unstable and is a great mini-Hopper. At the end of the day, this is very derivative and a lesser version of better movies. I do still like me some Ribisi.

Ribisi is always good and he gives a great performance. I can;t say the rest of the cast does. The mother character is nothing too special and the lead is mediocre. The whole mob feel gets lost when Tommy Lee makes his appearance. It starts out with the cliché, voice over done by the lead character as all mob movies do. There is no real description of the rise of Joey(Ribisi's Character) to mob boss. It was a story based on a Philadelphia mafia, I was thinking Joey Merlino but I guess not because of the ending. All in all the movie was not that bad. I recommend "Gotti" or "Goodfellas" first though. No major players in this one but it will hold your attention. I wish there was more story of the kids growing up into mob guys but they skip that and head right into adulthood.

A decent story, good acting, but for a good number of people who have spent any time in Philly and/or Pittsburgh, ... you can't pull off calling Pittsburgh 'Philadelphia' (anymore then you can call Philadelphia 'Pittsburgh'). Both cities are great locations for movies... but just because they both happen to be in Pennsylvania, you can't interchange them -- geographically, architecturally they are distinctively unique (even if you leave the "Youse Guys" and the "Younse" accents out of it). Had South Philly's "Rocky" been filmed in Pittsburgh but pawned off as Philly it wouldn't be the classic it became, (nor conversely would the "Deer Hunter") it would have been ruined. I don't know how much better "10th & Wolf" would have been if the geography matched the story, but for me it would have been more believable.

I gave this film an 8. Maybe it's just because I happen to think Giovanni Ribisi is an exceptional actor, but I really did find this to be a surprisingly good film. The one thing that didn't sit well with me was the idea that James Marsden is the star. That's simply a misnomer. He is a decent actor and does give a professional effort, but I just do not see him as the street-tough Philly kid he's supposed to be. Maybe this is a bit cynical, but there really wouldn't be much reason for a woman to watch this movie if not for somebody with good looks like Marsden playing the lead character and gracing the cover of the DVD. Hey, don't get me wrong, Piper Perabo has made me watch a movie or two that I regret, so it definitely goes both ways. Still, I could have done without the forced romance angle that they really tried to pull off between the two of them. But overall I definitely would recommend seeing this film for Ribisi's performance if nothing else. As he ages he's beginning to play some much darker, grittier characters which suits him very well. His versatility is astounding, especially his ability to maintain a level of sympathy no matter how many misdeeds he commits. Check this one out if you're a fan of the genre, it will hold your attention and may surprise you a bit as it's much more than just the former Marine forced to return home in order save his family from a couple of corrupt cops trying to extort him.