Lansky - A Mente do Crime

I'd seen a preview for Lansky on HBO a couple of weeks ago and it looked like a fascinating movie. Too bad the film couldn't meet the expectations. Richard Dreyfuss (Mr. Holland's Opus, Night Falls on Manhattan) stars as Meyer Lansky a gangster from the early 1900's. The film deals with his character throughout the film going back and forth from different ages. Dreyfuss is not the only actor to play Lansky in the film. Dreyfuss plays him from his 30's on, Max Perlich (Beautiful Girls, Georgia) plays him in his 20's, and a child actor plays him at a younger age. The film deals with his dealings in the mob and his family life. Eric Roberts (Runaway Train, Most Wanted) plays Bugsy Siegel and Anthony LaPaglia (The Client, Commandments) plays Lucky Luciano. Both of these actors do well, especially LaPaglia, but aren't given enough screen time. Richard Dreyfuss is very good in the lead, but is out-acted by Max Perlich playing Lansky in his earlier years. I know the film probably wanted a big name (Dreyfuss) but I would have preferred to see Perlich play him the whole time instead of Dreyfuss. The film takes some good choices on how to tell the story, but the story itself is kind of boring. It's interesting at times, but nothing special.

I saw the movie yesterday on HBO. Liked Robert Dreyfuss' performance very much. He is great! But didn't understand what happened to Lansky's first wife, Anna. She simply disappeared with no explanation and was suddenly "replaced" by Teddy. Did Anna die? Did the Lansky divorced? It seems that the producers made the movie only for the mob's admirers and/or experts, supposing that everybody would understand the story. There was a lack of some connections to make the movie understandable. Even so, I enjoyed it very much, especially because of Dreyfuss, who happens to be one of my favorite North American actors. Anthony La Paglia played well too and even Eric Roberts had a good performance.

To put it in a few words: not enough real facts, not deep psychological analysis of the characters. The only good thing about the movie is the acting. But it does not make it for the movie length...

After seeing the trailer, I waited the movie with very high expectations. I mean, hello, this was a movie about Meyer Lansky, the brain behind the Syndicate, one of the most influent mob leaders ever. An ocean of opportunities... And, what did I get for the two hours spent in front of the TV? just a big mark of question: "what did it want from me?!" There was not the rush and the fascinating action from "goodfellas" or "casino", nor the sympathetic romantic retrospective from "bugsy", and it was far from stories like "once upon a time in America". The biography is romanced and extremely brief. If you do not know the real life of Lansky, for sure you will not understand too many things from this movie. If you know it, you will be disappointed. And if the intention was to analyze the feelings and emotions of the character, well then, it didn't do it deep enough.

Certain friendships play a part in history in that without the relationship history itself might have been different. FDR and Winston Churchill for example. It works negatively too, just look at Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Kennedy.

In gangland lore and this was by no means easy in those clannish days the friendship of Italian Charles Luciano with Jewish Meyer Lansky. Crossing ethnic and religious lines was by no means easy then, but these two formed the national syndicate of organized crime that still is in operation.

Richard Dreyfuss and Anthony LaPaglia play the mature Lansky and Luciano characters. Eric Roberts is Ben Siegel otherwise known to those who didn't know him as Bugsy. You've seen parts of the story in Mobsters from Luciano's point of view and in Warren Beatty's film Bugsy. In Lansky the same story is now told from Meyer's point of view. The kid who saw pogroms in Poland and who fought with Ben Siegel's help on New York's mean streets to stay alive.

The main component of the Lansky Legend is that the man was never convicted of a major crime. As Dreyfuss says you keep it all in your head and write nothing down. You do have to have prodigious memory to do that and apparently Lansky did.

The story is told in flashback with an aging Dreyfuss in Israel hoping to settle there the rest of his days exercising the law of return. Politics intervened and he couldn't do it. He has some interesting explanations why.

It ain't exactly history but pretty close. These people fascinate us and will do so for the next century.

This movie could have been alot better. Meyer Lansky was to me far more interresting then both Siegel or Luciano. David Mamet is a great writer, but his script here just isn't that good. A few simple details were changed and the editing isn't all that good either. They should have told the audience which period we were looking at during certain times of Lanskys life. The movie begins around 1972 in Israel then we go back to the early 1900's in Russia and then to like 1912 in Manhattan, but you don't see that. You also don't hear about the 400$ million dollars that Lansky had in Sviss banks at the time of his death which is a fact by now. His Florida operations were also very known and he was the one who gave orders to both Santo Trafficante Jnr. and Carlos Marcello. Despite the lack of storytelling the acting is great. Richard Dreyfuss is extremely good as Lansky and Perlich also, but Roberts and LaPaglia somehow didn't fit in there. I give this movie *1/2 stars out of four.