The main two claims are in the title. The film begins with a series of questions that will not be answered. These storylines - they'll just be cut off at the end.
The main character begins the plot as a loser with a chance of success due to the book about the gangster Meyer Lansky. He has problems with his family, and then others will come. All this just goes into the sunset. How will it end? Nobody knows. Someday they will all just die.
Well, I want to talk about the gangster's excuse. The film began to reveal that being a gangster is bad. But then suddenly he brings out of Lansky an angel with a muddy face. And he did good, and his son knocks out a tear, and in general - well, just a saint, even though his hands are in blood on his shoulder.
I don't like movies like that. It looks fake.
Meyer Lansky... I don't think I have any right to talk about this person's identity. To describe all his exploits is clearly not my prerogative, talent is lacking, however, as well as Ethan Rockway, whose work I consider myself quite ready to evaluate.
I don’t know what this guy was doing in this movie. Meyer Lansky is not Al Capone, Frank Nitti, or John Gotti. This needs a special approach. Was he a gangster? Absolutely. But did that make history? Definitely not.
The film came out two years after Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, but how far apart are the two films.
Now I want to ask: who is Harvey Keitel to play such a controversial character? And I will answer: he is a very charismatic person, revealing himself in the company of only the same personalities. Let’s look at the pictures with his most memorable roles. “Pulp Fiction,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “The Irishman,” “From Dusk to Dawn,” “Youth,” “The Last Temptation of Christ.” The list goes on, but the basic idea, I think, is clear: Harvey reveals the whole palette of his talent only in the company of people who are not inferior to him. He doesn’t pull alone, no matter how twisted.
Sam Warington is not the kind of partner in whose company Keitel wants to reveal the facets of his talent. Perhaps, if the role of the writer was played by Ethan Hawke, in whose emotions the viewer is able to believe, the film would turn out to be different, more vexing, more emotional.
The movie is 2 hours long, but there is no scene. Banality, stupid cliches, everything.
Don’t waste your time on this movie. Watch Casino, Nice Guys, Once Upon a Time in America and have real feelings.
4 out of 10
A newspaperman wrote an article saying I have three hundred million dollars. If only I had a million dollars!
There are inscrutable ways of acting, so to speak. The basis for such a saying can serve as the film career of the famous Harvey Keitel, which any self-respecting viewer should know at least from the tapes ' Mad Dogs' (1991) and ' From dusk to dawn' (1995). Being himself of Jewish origin, Keitel embodied on the screen several very well-known but well-known representatives of his diaspora - gangsters Mickey Cohen in the film ' Bugsy' (1991) and, in fact, Benny' Bugsy' Siegel in the television film ' The Story of Virginia Hill' (1974). And now it's time to embody on the screen the image of Meyer Lansky - a childhood friend and associate in the criminal career of the same Bugsy Siegel. This happened in the dramatic biopic of 2021, which is named after the main character, and he himself at one time was called only ' Mafia Accountant'. But Keitel also played the role of Angelo Bruno - a representative of the Sicilian mafia in the United States in the film of his longtime friend Martin Scorsese & #39; The Irishman' (2019). And this is all in addition to other fictional gangsters in Keitel's career.
The biography of Meyer Lansky is so rich and extensive that, probably, any episode from his life could become the basis for a film adaptation. It was Lansky who as a child formed a group of young criminals engaged in their affairs in Brooklyn, where he met Benjamin Siegelbaum, later known as Bugsy Siegel. It was Meyer Lansky at the same time made friends with the future leader of the Italian mafia in the United States Lucky Luciano. It was Meyer Lansky who turned Cuba almost into his fiefdom during the reign of the corrupt president of the future ' Liberty Islands' Fulgencio Batista. It was with Meyer Lansky that Al Capone himself regulated his affairs, who was considered the most ferocious mafia of his time, because he easily dealt with those who stood in his way, but Lansky enjoyed his authority. It was Meyer Lansky who was approached by US intelligence agencies during World War II to use his connections to search for spies and provocateurs of Nazi Germany. It was Meyer Lansky who made a personal enemy in the person of FBI Director Edgar Hoover, having a very piquant dirt on him. . .
And all this is not a complete description of a long life ' Mafia Accountant' to be an understanding of the scale of this personality. In the film, it all begins with the fact that, already in old age, Lansky invites journalist David Stone (Sam Worthington) to write his biography. By this time, Lansky was living in Miami, stripped of his passport and travel rights by the government, leading a modest retirement lifestyle. The FBI, in turn, does not abandon attempts to discover the colossal money, which, in their opinion, Lansky cunningly hid, for which they begin the processing of the journalist. But for now, in intimate conversations, David and the former crime boss dive into Lansky's past. Thus, the tape becomes essentially a long and long flashback, where the filmmakers try to convey to the viewer exactly the scale of Meyer Lansky’s personality. On this basis, they took the most vivid events in their opinion from the life of the mafia and thereby wove a canvas, but a canvas of craftsmanship. Director 'Meyer Lansky' - inexperienced Eitan Rockaway - lacked the ability and probably the budget to put a fundamental biopic.
This picture is very far from the gangster sagas of Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma and the same Martin Scorsese, where images of mafia representatives were romanticized. In 'Meyer Lansky' there was a somewhat paradoxical situation: in terms of game level, the storyline with Harvey Keitel and Sam Worthington attracts more than ' flashback' with John Magaro playing Lansky during his formation as a major mafia and strengthening his position in the underworld. But it is the part of the film with the participation of Magaro that is more attractive to the viewer, because everyone wants to know how he was able to rise to such heights and how he did his dark deeds. But, apparently, the authors of the film wanted to attract as many audiences as possible, so they excluded screen cruelty from it, giving more meaningful conversations than the action itself, and it was precisely what the film lacked. At the same time, I want to note the diligent play of John Magaro, who understood that the embodiment of the image of Meyer Lansky is a chance that does not fall to every actor. It is possible that this Magaro also helped his Italian-Jewish origin, and this is a rattling mixture, coming from the times of great and terrible gangsters.
Summing up, we can say that the crime-dramatic biopic ' Meyer Lansky' not a bad movie. But the thing is that when the storyline is laid biography of people like Meyer Lansky, the viewer has the right to expect something more and global. We were accustomed to this by the greatest directors who shot the classics of gangster sagas, which still has not lost its relevance. It is likely that Meyer Lansky was not the last time he received his film adaptation, at least there is confidence that his image will still be used, shooting films of the corresponding genre. And fans of this genre will not dare to watch 'Mayer Lansky', but also warn that something special is not expected. Not a bad movie, but it could have been much better.
6 out of 10
A few months ago, when this film was playing in theaters, I had a desire to go to it, but it did not work. So, on a boring evening, I decide to run him out of the house, hoping to immerse myself in the history of one of the most famous mobsters in the United States. With the real story I know, and I was wondering how this story will be able to convey in film format.
There are no censorship words to describe my disappointment. I will immediately write that I watch movies in order to immerse myself in the story, the plot, the era shown, to feel the character of the characters.
And the people responsible for creating this 'creation' have messed up all of the above.
The main claim to the story. Why would you want to write an autobiographer? Why is this character given so much space in timekeeping? Throughout the film, I’ve been asking myself, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Why are you here?’ I came to see the story of an American gangster. Why is half of the timekeeping stuffed with the history of this template dummy?
The character is an unnecessary place in the script.
“I’m a writer, I have money problems, and I also have tarps with my wife and child” – all the information about this 100% cliché. Why would I know that? Why not cut it out completely and dedicate the film to the main character? I don't understand. What did the people in charge of the story think?
A big complaint about dialogue. It feels like 15-year-olds were writing for their own kind. Great desire to spoiler and give an example of a couple of examples. Empty babbling, unnecessary philosophizing. Dialogues from anime are less filled with pathos and more with specifics.
The plot is presented from 2 time periods. From the mid-20th century, where Lansky is young, and the stretch where he is already old. The middle of the 20th century, in principle, shown well, except for the above problem. You can find fault with a lot, but you do not want to - the film has a lot of problems.
But episodes where the main character is old are just ridiculous. The actor, hired for the role of Ghero, failed to cope with his task, completely not getting into the image. It seems that this is not a harsh experienced gangster, but just someone’s grandfather who accidentally flew into a coffee shop for lunch. Although it may be the problem of the writer who prescribed these scenes disgusting dialogue. As I have already written – an empty pathosy chatter filled with boyish quotes.
The ending of the film is equally disgusting. The main character, who, by the way, is a super-duper boss of the American mafia, rubbed snot and drool in his face, and went into the sunset under cheap pathosy music.
It's just a kick. There are no words to describe my indignation. How was it possible to ruin such a great idea of the film?
What interests me most is that you have a biography of a famous person. This biography is filled with interesting events: gang violence, murder, etc. Take it and use it! Make a normal movie based on this story! You don’t even have to work on the story. But the incompetents who worked on this film, and it was drained into the toilet.
I’ve been comparing games and movies for a long time, in terms of the elaboration of the plot there and there, and in terms of presenting this very plot to the viewer. I'm comparing the characters. The atmosphere of an era. And so on and so forth. Most likely, someone will say that these comparisons are wrong, that it is wrong to compare games and movies. “The same thing is completely different!”
But personally, as a consumer, I don’t care, I watch movies and play games for the sake of the story. And I've long thought that games are hundreds of times better at their job. And that surprises me. There is a well-known game Mafia 2, where all previously announced items are better. How did that happen? In my opinion, cinema is better able to present these parameters. It feels like all the talented and motivated directors died out in an instant.
Only clichéd horror films and Russian “comedies” can be worse.
4 out of 10
It seems that the creators had everything to make a good film (maybe, except for the budget, I don’t know). And then you look at who the director is, and it kind of falls into place. It turned out very boring, uninteresting, sluggish. Even I, a lover of the genre, can not be neutral.
This is a very boring biography of one of the criminal authorities of the United States of the 20th century. I didn't like the movie. It's just talking about criminal life. Lansky (played by Harvey Keitel) recounts how he became an authority. The movie is boring. The modern consumer society denies pure crime. And so Lansky is not called a thug and a murderer, but the largest casino operator in America. The modern consumer society denies killing for money. Even the term friendship is being redefined through the lust for money and power. Director Ethan Rockway highlights Lansky’s monogamy in the world of money and crime. It’s ridiculous to see a casino, so much money and Lansky’s monogamy.
The film only liked the plot. So it's not just Lansky's interview with writer Stone (played by Sam Worthington), but there's intrigue, double bottom. This double bottom makes you watch the movie to the end. 2 writers. They made a good story about a clever Jew. Lansky, as a Jew, is very intelligent and can outsmart everyone. The authorities, the police, the FBI agents appear in the film stupid and funny. Lansky is an intelligent Jew who became a criminal authority in the United States.
The head of the murder corporation - how loud it sounds! But the point is simple. This is a drama about old age, about a past life. A person lives, achieves something in life, and then "Bang!" And old age comes when nothing is wanted and nothing is needed.
The intelligent Jew Lansky could outsmart anyone, but not the time. Time is cruel to everyone, even the kings of the underworld. Lansky is smart, as director Rockway shows, but no one has managed to fool time.
1981. American underworld legend Meyer Lansky (Harvey Keitel) is eighty-one, terminally ill and wants to tell the truth about himself and his life. The truth that will never be told on television and will never be published in the newspaper. The truth that he believes to be true. So Lansky invites writer David Stone (Sam Worthington) to Miami to write a book about him. Stone, who has experience as a criminal journalist and one successful book, is now stranded, so readily responds to the invitation and happily rushes to Florida, hoping for the upcoming mad success in the writing field. However, Lansky is under the scrutiny of the FBI, which has been searching for his illegal millions for several decades, and the writer turns out to be an unwitting participant in their development.
Undoubtedly, the main advantage of the picture is Harvey Keitel, who at the eighty-third year of his life just by playing eyes lifts the brainchild of the young director Ethan Rockway from the floor. Because if you remove old Harvey from the movie, watching a two-hour epic about the Federal search for criminal millions becomes unbearable. Keitel is one of those cohorts of actors who just can't play badly. His old-time look, depending on the circumstances, then lights up with a bright young fire, then acquires a heavy metal hue, then significantly fades away, and it is extremely fascinating to observe these changes.
But if Keitel copes by five plus, playing Lansky the old, then John Magaro looks rather mediocre as Lansky the young. Memories of the transformation of Meer Sukhovliansky, a Polish Jew but a native of the Russian Empire, into Meyer Lanski, one of the kings of the underground world of the United States, are boring, although the source material is rich in boring events. Cinematic Lansky young does not inspire fear and trepidation, which really oozed the real Meyer, if you believe what you can read about him. John Magaro’s Lansky is more like a middle-man than a man who pulls the strings to manage financial flows and people’s destinies.
The image of this “mafia accountant” was repeatedly embodied in the cinema. He was even played by Dustin Hoffman in the 2005 film The Lost City. Played and head of the Acting Studio of New York Lee Strasberg in the second part of the “Godfather”, playing the role of Hyman Roth, whose image was written off just from Meyer Lansky. Other actors also played. However, in this role, I liked Harvey Keitel more than others: external calmness and even some humility before the inevitable, and in contrast to them – lively eyes that speak more than words, facial expressions and gestures.
But the movie itself is average. Average production, average musical accompaniment, average plot moves. It's average. Why in the biographical film agents of the Bureau, who are no sharper than logs, why Maureen Duffy, with whom the writer Stone had an adulterer, why, after all, David Stone himself, who in the end was not too much and was not needed by Meyer? There are a lot of “why” and “why.” Ethan Rockway’s biographical film about one of the most odious criminals of the United States tries very much to resemble the classics of the genre, but looks too pale to leave a bright seal in the history of cinema. That’s why it’s so important.
Styrlitz has long noticed a connection. But I could not get rid of the drunken lady who pestered him as soon as he entered here.
- You have to listen to me. You have to believe me. When mathematicians talk about us as breadcrumbs, it's a lie. Lies! In love, I am Einstein... I want to be with you.
- Well, go wait outside. I'll be right out.
- Really? Swear it.
- I'll die. Go draw some formulas. Go...
'Seventeen Moments of Spring', 1973, dir. T. Lioznova
'Einstein' Tatiana Lioznova showed us love in her time. But with 'Einstein' the underworld we can get acquainted today. Eighty-year-old man shares revelations about his life. I remember my youth talking to a journalist. Murders, inescapable retaliation for those who crossed the road, the struggle for existence, the legalization of business and the accumulation of capital. Day after day. Year after year. Tens of years. The path of the stream to the full river. Meyer Lansky is a mob accountant. One of the founders of the National Crime Syndicate.
His name is not as significant as Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, John Gotti, Carlo Gambino. However, the path passed by this small is no less impressive. A Jew by birth, at the age of nine, with his mother and brother, fleeing pogroms in Poland, arrived on a steamer in America. The land of opportunity and the criminal ethnic groups around are Italians, Irish, Jews. Destiny 'Einstein' was predetermined.
The director throws the viewer back and forth, back and forth. Here and now, we have a dry old man (Harvey Keitel). He shares revelations for a future book on bootlegging in the 20s, early 30s of the last century. About investing money in the gambling business of Florida, Cuba, develops the theme of Las Vegas, tells about a close friend Bugsy Siegel. We plunge into the atmosphere ' knives and axes' when the guilty are gutted without hesitation, quickly, without pity. And scenes from far away come to life with pictures of young, hot heads. The pulse of their lives was the key.
Meyer Lansky, if he went to mathematics, science, could have had a successful career. His mind, his brain, solved complex equations like how to survive, how to make two, three, five out of a dollar, how not to be eaten on the one hand by the government, on the other by criminal sharks. And to succeed, to succeed, to succeed. ..
Born in 1902, he died in 1983. At the same time, he was never convicted, and during the war he even rendered services to the intelligence of the US Navy to identify German spies and eliminate them. On FBI Director Edgar Hoover, Lansky had dirt at all - an influential person was filmed with a hidden surveillance camera during an act of sodomy. Fun.
The picture is interesting as a biography of an influential person. But at the same time, half the screen time allotted for conversations with a reporter is straining. And although they have an intrigue with scenes of adultery, intrigues of blackmail of persons from the department ' wiretaps-peeping' all this seems unnecessary, not so significant.
6 out of 10