By the Gun

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.

"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.

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

I won't say this film is a pure masterpiece but it is definitely a good film noir. I admit it is slow, sometimes a little too long on some scenes, such as this one in the warehouse and borrowed from RESERVOIR DOGS, with a little too much talking. But the story, even foreseeable and cliché on some points, reminds me Phil Joanou's STATE OF GRACE, remember, starring Sean Penn, another film noir involving friends, brother and the gang, where Ed Harris could be imagined in the Harvey Keitel role. Yes, I definitely love this little unknown, at least, not known enough, feature very dark, gloomy and not for all audiences. I have seen many of this kind and have hundreds of those in my huge Library. I will never get tired of that. Never, over my dead body.

Three stars only because of the performance by Slaine as Nick's friend. This movie is comically bad. Every time you see the lead character he is either lighting a cigarette (he lights no fewer than 5 cigarettes in the opening scenes alone), or tossing a long, freshly lit cigarette out a car window. It almost seems as if somebody in production decided Nick looks good with a full Marlboro 120, but not with one that is half smoked. If it didn't mean sitting through this mud again, I'd love to go back and see exactly how many times a cigarette is lit by either Nick one of the other one dimensional wannabe gangster characters. At any given time somebody is flipping open an old school zippo and doing a Fonzarello routine lighting his smoke. The only saving grace in this film is the performance by Slaine as Nick's best friend. This guy is extremely watchable in this role (and lights up the screen instead of a smoke).