10th & Wolf

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.

What an awful film. I caught a screening of it last night in Irvine, CA. I think the filmmakers would be lucky if it made it straight to USA or FX. It's not even good enough for Showtime. Seriously though. Every cliché in existence is thrown in, combined with REALLY bad acting and REALLY bad cameos from Val Kilmer and Dennis Hopper. What a waste of time. The worst performance in the film probably comes from Lesley Ann Warren, who acts all Jennifer Coolidge-esquire in an over-the-top role. After seeing this movie, everyone will know that Paul Haggis is the real brains behind "Crash," because what Bobby Moresco wrote here comes straight from the lame examples you would find in a book on how to write a screenplay. Trust me, and don't waste your time on this movie if it ever ends up coming to a theater near you, which it probably won't. This was pure trash.

This is one of those films that gives the impression it is written by someone who is more a fan of the genre than a practitioner. It contains all the usual elements found in these 'tough' and 'gritty' crime dramas – the questionable loyalty between hoods who have grown up together on the mean streets of the city's slums, the psychotic gangster, the tough but vulnerable single mum, the doting mother, the sleazy clubs, the random acts of violence, the pop music soundtrack – but never once comes close to showing any signs of originality.

James Marsden – as anonymous a leading man as you are ever likely to find – plays the son of a mobster drummed out of the marines for stealing a jeep and going after Saddam on his own when the US call off the Gulf War on the dictator's doorstep back in '91. He is offered a deal by shady cop Brian Dennehy (looking surprisingly trim but worryingly frail) to help put away a mobster from his old neighbourhood in return for his freedom from military prison. Returning to his old haunts, he falls in with his slightly feeble-minded brother and his cousin – ably played by Giovanni Ribisi – who is about to embark on a gang war with the mobster in question, which leads to the usual conflict of loyalties.

After watching this I wondered not only why I bothered watching it through to its inevitable conclusion, but also why anybody bothered putting up the money for it. The script is pedestrian at best, and the storyline never wavers from a path that is as predictable as it is dull. Only the quality of the acting, and especially a blistering performance from Ribisi, make this worth watching at all. Well – that and the unintentionally hilarious death scene of one-legged gangster, Julian.

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.

I was not at the special screening in Orange County but got to see this movie under special circumstances. To me, this movie was about five elements from being great. Having said that, though, I would definitely recommend other people to see it because the project as a whole is worth it and it pays off in the end. James Marsden was excellent. Giovanni Ribisi was near excellent. Some of the other actors did very good jobs with their parts. The story itself was also compelling. What didn't ring true to me were Warren's performance. . .totally miscast and an average performance, the cameos of Tommy Lee and Val Kilmer were distracting and unneeded, Brad Renfro was good in any one scene but from scene to scene his character was not consistent. . .one scene he seemed normal and the next he seemed like Rain Man, the dialogue had a few too many clichés, and the movie did not completely capture the period of the early 1990's or, in flashbacks, the mid-80's. Had all of these things been just a little better a 9 out of 10 would have been easily attained. Still I plan to recommend it to other people because this movie will emotionally move you.