As I mentioned in the just posted article reviewing the movie Sunshine on Blu-ray disc (see review here: "Sunshine" on Blu-ray disc), my movie selections this week were not what I had hoped for my Netflix subscription.
I really had hoped to get to see 3:10 to Yuma, but it seems that Netflix is bound and determined to make me wait for that movie (and also the movie The Kingdom, which I've been waiting on for several weeks now...) so instead I got a few other movies from que instead. One was the aforementioned Sunshine, and the other was the older title Mobsters.
Mobsters reminded me a bit of another movie that I recently watched (somewhere in the last year) Boss of Bosses. That was a recommendation from a friend, but it covers some of the same territory that Mobsters covers and perhaps covers it better, but I am getting ahead of myself here.
Mobsters was made in 1991. Some people have described it as a Young Guns mob movie. It took 4 relatively hot (box off hot, as I'm not making comments about what these stars looked like 
) and buzz worthy actors and put them into the starring roles here. As Amazon.com notes on their editorial review/Product Description:
A terrific ensemble cast powers this fast-paced rise of organized crime in America. Mobsters traces the daring exploits of four close friends growing up in 1920s New York: the charming "Lucky" Luciano (Christian Slater), the savvy Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey), the headstrong "Bugsy" Siegel (Richard Grieco) and the diplomatic Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor). From their humble beginnings, they formed an unbreakable bond that led them to the top of the underworld in this visually stunning film co-starring Oscar-winning actors F. Murray Abraham and Anthony Quinn.
Personally, if I had seen this movie when it was released back in 1991, I completely forgot about it. That's not a great thing, though I guess it wasn't too bad as I was able to watch the movie from beginning to end without feeling too much like I had seen it before. On the other hand, if I had seen it before, I would have hoped it was more memorable, and even after this viewing, well I had the same feeling.
It is an entertaining movie and is also an interesting one, but it doesn't strike me as something that memorable and there are parts that are just downright distracting. Parts like actors that never seemed to age as they played their roles, and also a difficult sense of the passage of time in the movie. It was obvious that time had passed, but not so obvious was how much time had passed and what events really had taken place in between. Instead there was a general glossing over of the passage of time and events in the name of making the movie shorter, which doesn't really seem to have been that necessary.
An Amazon.com reviewer wrote a review of the DVD release of this movie and complained that the DVD release cut several scenes that might have made the end result here a much better product. Sadly the HD DVD version of the film seems to be missing things too, and likely was taken almost directly from the materials that made up the DVD release.
A bigger sin to me is the lack of extras on this HD DVD release. There's basically nothing there. No biographies of the real mobsters that were portrayed in the film. No directories commentary. No making of short. Nothing to add value and improve the product at all. Just a lackluster effort.
Now, some may say 'hey, it's an HD DVD and HD DVD is a dead format, or was quickly becoming one when this movie was published on HD DVD' and they'd be close to correct, but then again HD DVD wasn't absolutely down for the count at the time this disc was pressed, and even if it was losing in the format war, customers still deserve better and should have gotten it from this release. Too bad the studios just dumped this one out there with a take it or leave it attitude.
Personally, I'd say leave it, or at least avoid purchase and instead make it a rental. Spend your money on something better and more deserving instead.
