By the Gun

i watched this earlier today, its fairly well filmed, realistic locations etc but to be honest is was clear after 30 mins or so that i was really wasting my time, even so i decided to see it through to its bitter clichéd predictable end, it amazes me how actors of the calibre of both Toby Jones and Harvey Keitel ended up in this movie all be it playing bit parts... maybe they 'had to do a little favour for someone' by being in this very average clichéd seen it all before type film... a familiar tale of protection rackets, strip clubs, hits going wrong, family loyalty, revenge and of course no one gets away clean! including the audience! 4/10

A young gangster (Nick) achieves his lifetime goal of joining the Mafia and we see the struggle it causes between his family, friends and girlfriend. This is a well acted piece with a nice turn from Harvey Kietal as a crime Boss. Nicks life is complicated by his long term partner in crimes gambling indiscretions and this leads to an explosion of violence where everyone is affected.

Downbeat locations and realistic dialogue seem to add a feeling of doom for the Mafia lifestyle that is portrayed as dying out. The film is a bit reminiscent of The Town but on a smaller budget. Well worth the money as a rental but it is unlikely that you will feel the need to rush out and buy the Bluray. An all round solid effort.

"You watched the first half of Goodfellas like a thousand times." That is an actual line from this film that feels more like a critique of itself. By the Gun is a Scorsese wannabe film that has terrible dialog and even worse accents. The only thing worse than being a Scorsese wannabe is being a Scorsese rip-off and while By the Gun does have moments of blatant plagiarism, it does quite fully embrace it. The dialog and screenplay feels like they are excerpts from better films in the same genre. It never quite gels coming out of any of these actors outside of Slaine and Harvey Keitel. The best part about this film is Slaine, he turns in a good performance but his character feels more and more like Jackie Boy from Mean Streets going into the third act. Harvey Keitel is...well, he's Harvey Keitel, this guy created the tough guy so he gets a pass just because he plays this part in his sleep. Leighton Meester does her best here and it is nowhere near enough to salvage the cast from being a complete disaster. My last and final complaint about the cast is more a question than anything, but what in the hell is Toby Jones doing in this film and what the hell was that accent? Furthermore, the film is too bright and vibrant. What we're seeing isn't doing the moments of grit any justice, they're glossy, crisp and hardly the vibe it wants to be going for. But, setting aside a terrible cast and poor cinematography, what is most important here is that this film isn't entertaining. It isn't interesting, it falls in line with being another poorly done mob film that was lucky enough to get picked up by a distributor.

As written by Emilio Mauro and directed by James Mottern BY THE GUN is another Boston Mafia flick, but this one is a bit more sensitive to character development and conflicts of the gang world than most. Perhaps most of that is due to Ben Barnes very exceptional portrayal of the lead character, but kudos must be passed around to a supporting cast that is less concerned with star turns then depicting the miasma of Mafioso life, perhaps the most dysfunctional concept of 'family' ever created.

Nick Tortano (Ben Barnes) is a smooth-talking, ladies man, ambitious criminal from the streets of Boston. After years spent working for and idolizing the Italian gangsters he finally proves himself to the boss Salvatore Vitaglia (Harvey Keitel) and becomes a made man. However, once inside, Nick conflicts with a moneymaker for the Mafia and begins to drive a wedge between him and Boss. In the sidebars, Nick's 'driver' is the fat but fearless George Mullins (Slaine) who makes Nick's initial difficult kill for him, Nick's real father (Paul Ben- Victor) and younger brother Vito (an impressive turn for Kenny Wormald), a love affair with Ali Matazano (Leighton Meester), and various conflicts with Salvatore's enemies. There are some fine minor character roles by Toby Jones, Ron Komora, Tully Banta-Cain, William Bloomfield, Richie Coaster and others, but basically this is Ben Barnes film –a confused young man who makes some wrong choices but does so in a manner that keeps our compassion.

Not a great film, nor does it pretend to be, but for a small Indie look at the autopsy of the Boston Mafia it fares well.

There's nothing essentially new in this piece. Despite that it is still a worthy movie, and will please fans of mob dramas. It's extremely well cast, better, I think, than the recent Gotti. So it comes across as genuine, with plenty of evil types, and these horrible men contrast well with the selfish and naive lead, all giving really good performances with an edgy and convincing script. The soundscape is minimal yet brooding, and works well. The sub-plots of love, friendship debt and family relationships gel really well with the overarching theme. It all leads to a rather surprising conclusion that was excellently done. My grips with it are that the promise of establishing shots that this film would include good cinematography never really materialised, though some of the down and dirty locations were well chosen. It certainly has that poorer suburbs of New York look down pat, like the Sopranos sometimes does, or movies like Black Mass. By The Gun is not an original idea, but it is really well made and the actors here have definitely risen to the occasion.