Esquina da Morte

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 surprised at how much I liked this film, being that I had never heard of it. The story focuses on Tommy (James Marsden), who has just come home from the army, but he's now undercover (working for Brian Dennehey), to bring down the gangsters he grew up. He comes home to see his brother Vincent (Brad Renfro) and his cousin Joey (Giovanni Ribisi), and the story goes from there. I won't go into any more detail at the sake of not ruining the film, but it's very good. If you enjoy a good gangster film, then this is the one for you. I am giving it an 8 out of 10. Also notice certain celeb cameos, such as Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee, an d Dennis Hopper.

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.

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.