Mob Town

There are a lot of good mafia movies. This is not one of them. The whole films feels like a school project. Slow story, slow dialogues, experienced actors acts like this is their first time on screen.. 90 minutes wasted..

Nice movie of a story your elder uncle may have told you, brought to the screen. Unnecessary love sub plot (not gonna tell you how it turns out cause honestly, I'm not sure myself.) Goofy side deputy, lacking the antics of Barney Fife and more of a aloof 5th grade science teacher. I'm giving it a five stars because I like uncle stories. I honestly think this movie was only made so someone with an antique car collection could have a movie they were in. I spent most of this movie thinking about how much David Arquette is aging/morphing into James Cromwell. ;)

It usually takes a lot of action for me to keep my interest but for some reason I watched it straight through and definitely enjoyed it. It broadened my sense of the earlier days when the mob was not as noticed. seemed like a good time to thrive and I can see why...no technology. This was light-hearted and almost funny. Danny A. Abeckaser who played Joe Barbara was a natural. His wife played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano) looked great and was great. This was like a PG mob movie. I enjoyed it till the end. Oh and Genovese was really cool to see. I just cant believe how lame the cops were back then. almost comical.

Interesting topic - the big meeting of mafia bosses in New York State back in the 50s. It is just hard not to laugh at how the police surveillance is portrayed.

This is not bad enough to get only a 4 star. This is nowhere good enough to be a 7 star. This is a 5 or 6 star. Yes, it's low budget, but the cinematography is better than many with this kind of budget. Yes, they "steal" footage from old documentaries, but the imagery and colors from those pop in a nice way. The dialogue is good enough; not stellar, but not hardly too rough or clunky. The acting is good enough. The plot is already known, since it's based on history. To me, the biggest weakness is the over-long personal scenes that don't matter, like the fish-monger scene with tinges of Poor-Man's Tarantino. The love story and the domestic marriage scenes are extraneous too; they let the air out of what little tension this movie otherwise has.

This subject is tailor-made for a 20-30-million dollar project. This small project doesn't come close to exploiting that. Or even better -- a 3-episode limited series. Arquette isn't bad in it; it's hardly the worst perfomance of his career. Just don't go out of your way or pay any fees to watch this. It's not worth money to see.