10- Scarface (1983)
Dir- Brian De Palma
That blood-and-powder-splattered climax, in which Cuban immigrant-turned-kingpin Tony Montana introduces his 'little friend' to the thugs hell-bent for his head, has become a touchstone for so many other inspired works (Anurag Kashyap modelled the final Tommy Gun shootout from 'Bombay Velvet' on the same scene). But even beyond the recklessly exciting upsurge of violence (there is also one scene with a chainsaw that will make you cringe), De Palma's coke-trip of a gangster yarn does land unsubtly powerful punches on your imagination. Montana himself, played by a fiery, though sometimes overcooked, Al Pacino, comes off as a discomfortingly alienating protagonist; the brutish script by Oliver Stone makes no concession for sympathy or even a shred of humanity. Rather, his utterly amoral rise and subsequent fall are given by De Palma the treatment of a sleazy exploitation yarn: lurid, gaudy and ultimately gorgeous. Forget subtext. 'Scarface' is all style and sensation and it still plunges you into the sickening yet compulsive thrill of bloodbath and crime like no other film yet.
9- Road To Perdition (2002)
Dir- Sam Mendes
Is this most visually stunning gangster film yet? Before he would go on to expose the damaged, emotionally bruised side to our favourite secret agent, British director Sam Mendes lent one of his most dazzling directorial touches to an otherwise ordinary graphic novel about a no-nonsense henchman who is compelled by dangerous circumstances to discover his fatherly side. Tom Hanks, in one of those probable miscasts that end up working so well, plays Michael Sullivan, a diligent and trusted enforcer for Chicago boss John Rooney (a wonderfully crusty Paul Newman). Things take a nasty turn when Sullivan's son witnesses a routine meeting gone awry and the father and son are forced to flee with the mob and Jude Law's slimy shutterbug-wielding hitman. Sure, for all of Mendes' mastery of both emotional depth and nail-biting tension, the plot does turn a bit predictable. But oh, how beautiful, atmospheric and magnificently chilling does it look! The late legend Conrad L. Hall shoots this tale with eye-popping, jaw-dropping grandeur; Chicago's badlands have never looked this epic in cinema.
8- Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Dir- Quentin Tarantino
Two years after his breakout film, Quentin Tarantino would bust the idea of the typical movie gangsters forever, by making them argue about foot massages and pork chops, complain about pricy milkshakes and even quote the Bible and talk of leaving the game. While all that is now iconic, 'Reservoir Dogs' deserves mention here for being so darned faithful to the twisted dynamic between outlaws that legends like Peckinpah and Scorsese had portrayed so brilliantly. Even the plot is pure, mathematical ingenuity; a bunch of crooks fumble a robbery with bloody results and then scratch their heads over what went wrong. And Tarantino pads these bare bones with a buzzing, maddeningly verbose script of banter, anger and distrust that just reeks of the insidious evil and treachery that these men hide beneath their black suits. That cast too is just awesome: Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi all get meaty, bloody portions worth killing for. For all the verbal sass and chutzpah (including a severed ear), 'Reservoir Dogs' is most memorable for honouring the basics of the template.
7- The Godfather (1972)
Dir- Francis Ford Coppola
There are some reasons why this much-hailed cornerstone of the gangster film genre ranks a bit low on my list here. One of them is that in a bid to be as faithful as possible to the supremely schlocky template created by Mario Puzo's novel, Coppola's lavish cinematic fiesta ends up being just that, a template for almost every single soap operatic storytelling method in the world. And unlike its richer and more layered sequel, it is also oddly cold in its emotions, a bit too preoccupied with its craft than other concerns. But what craft is this! From the much-rehashed plot with its still legendary twists and turns to the impressive cast of towering performances (Marlon Brando's hoarse voiced titular patriarch supported amply by star-making turns by Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Robert Duvall) to those indelibly thrilling scenes (Bonasera, the horse head, the gun in the toilet, the bomb in the car and the unforgettable closing of a door) to that mesmerising score, everything in 'The Godfather' is legendary even as it is pure pulp.
6- Casino (1995)
Dir- Martin Scorsese
'Casino' was not meant to be this freaking incredible. After having done an indisputable classic of the gangster genre (but we will come to that later), few expected Martin Scorsese to repeat the same template, albeit in a different milieu and setting, and still deliver the same virtuoso level of filmmaking, histrionics and trademark style. But the fact that 'Casino' delivers so much of all and more is evidence to his unbeatable mastery of this particular genre. The story begins in 1973 with a grand scheme by the big wiseguys to run a sensational casino in Vegas to skim off the top of the cash flowing into its vaults. Narrating, lamenting and propelling forward the story are three vital, flawed characters: Robert De Niro's smooth yet simmering Ace Rothstein, Joe Pesci's loose-trigger criminal Nicky Santoro and Sharon Stone (in a brilliant turn) as the devilish Ginger McKenna. With a dazzling, delirious blend of stunning visuals (by Robert Richardson), whiplash editing and extraordinary musical selections, Scorsese ratchets up the gore and profane gab to the scale of a real, raw epic.
5- The Killing (1956)
Dir- Stanley Kubrick
It was perhaps right that Stanley Kubrick should make a film about criminals. The clinically incisive and coolly cynical storyteller would have loved the script for one of his most everlasting cinematic gems: a lean and mean heist thriller in which all the best laid plans of a bunch of disgruntled, disillusioned goons are ruined by either betrayal or bewildering error. And yet, the surprise is that for all its mechanical efficiency and cold-blooded irony, 'The Killing' is actually moving in the most unexpected places. It is indeed a cold-blooded tale of brutality but it also makes you cringe in shock.
For this is that one rare heist film that does not show its plotting criminal protagonists as super-smart geniuses or brilliant safecrackers. Rather, Kubrick shows them as they are, ill-fated outlaws trying to find a way out of the tangle of lies that their lives demand. Sterling Hayden's slick yet increasingly hapless Johnny Clay leads a gang of grizzled, even weary thieves on a daring racetrack robbery that demonstrates the director's mastery with precise, economical, effortlessly exciting filmmaking. However, as human failings and flaws spoil the plan, 'The Killing' gains twisted beauty of a hilarious yet tragic urban ballad of how all of us are doomed to life's little brutalities.
4- Mean Streets (1973)
Dir- Martin Scorsese
It is easy to forget that so much of Martin Scorsese' trademark style of fast editing, furious violence and funky soundtrack choices owes its origins to one modest yet extraordinary little film in 1973 that is up there as one of the most real, raw and roaringly breakneck portraits of criminals facing the realities of their reckless lives. If 'The Godfather' showed crime and evil with a rich, luxurious scale, 'Mean Streets' takes us to the eponymous ghettoes literally, by telling the tale of a ragtag gang of third-generation mobsters who spend entire days and nights doing odd-jobs and partying as if there was no tomorrow.
Scorsese makes us stick up and close with the terrifying dilemma of the anti-hero Charlie (a superb Harvey Keitel), an ambitious yet guilt-ridden smart-talking goon who debates a well-connected future and his own personal chaos, including his epileptic lover Teresa (Amy Robinson) and her crazy, debt-ridden cousin Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro in a sizzling, star-making turn). But more than the director's fiercely poignant charting of the dire destinies of these three helpless souls, it is his bristling, brutal and breathlessly scorching portrait of the grubby streets, seedy clubs and grimy staircases of New York's underbelly of crime that lends it this deservingly high rank among all the mobster classics.
3- Performance (1970)
Dir- Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg
Long before Guy Ritchie rolled out his stylish and snappy London gangster yarns of the 90s, there was already a subversive, seminal shocker of a film that had established the pure, ripplingly cool vibe of gritty crime, rough sex and typically delicious English banter that was to be imitated in all those films. And yet, 'Performance' is a lot more than just an extraordinary portrait of the era of the Kray Twins; it is also a weirdly beautiful and incredibly detailed vignette into the London at the wee end of the 1960s. Gone are the Beatles and their Abbey Road-trotting musical marvels; in its place are sexual subversion and crazy counter-culture, both knocking on the doors of propriety. London is no longer just swinging. It is also seedy and sleazy.
Chas (a brilliantly hypnotic James Fox) is every bit the typical cool-headed, Cockney-speaking English hitman, balancing his dirty deeds with impeccable style (as co-director and cinematographer Nicolas Roeg cuts between a svelte Rolls Royce and the skin of a cavorting couple on bed in the film's irresistibly sexy opening). But when a job goes awry and makes his own pudgy, thick-necked bosses demand for his head, he is forced to fly the coop and land up in the basement of reclusive rock legend Turner (played by none other than rock-and-roll bad boy Mick Jagger with lurid relish).
What follows is an unhinged, genre-busting and psychedelic experience to be seen to be witnessed, as Roeg and Cammell draw up both Chas' fugitive helplessness with Turner's creative disillusionment together in one frame in a mind-numbing wrangling of the forces of identity and sexuality. But the film also captures the lean and mean side of the city's streets with vivid, almost ethereal realism, from the frigidly aristocratic gangsters in their lush lairs to the Asian and African migrants in their ghettoes on Notting Hill and how these separate worlds collide and chaos ensues.
2- The Godfather Part 2 (1974)
Director- Francis Ford Coppola
Everyone will agree with me: there is no reason why 'The Godfather Part 2' should not be greater than the undeniably popular yet often pulpy original film. And this is certainly a bit of an understatement because you cannot just love it enough. Not only did Coppola, his cast and crew broaden the limits of the turbulent tale of the Corleones to unexpected depths; they also reached unprecedented levels of storytelling mastery which few filmmakers can boast of. I mean, just consider the twin narrative threads at its crux. On one hand is Michael Corleone (a flawlessly seething Al Pacino), the new titular patriarch who is compelled to take decisions that will demand a lot of sacrifices. On the other is the narrative flashback of a young Vito Corleone (a mesmeric and sublime Robert De Niro), who chose a life of crime only for the sake of his family.
Has there been any other film that has explored the consequences of a path of crime and amorality as this fabulously crafted and superbly acted film? Coppola's majestic direction flits from timeline to timeline, drawing up superbly hard-hitting parallels of difference between a soft-spoken father and his devious, ruthlessly ambitious son. On one hand, there is Michael's hell-bent determination to stay alive and strong in a world where nobody, not even family, can be trusted. On the other, there is Vito's young yearning for revenge at the unfair world around him which turns into a strange form of justice in a lawless land.
Gordon Willis' stunning cinematography (from the hamlets of Sicily to the ghettoes of early 20th century New York and from sun-kissed Nevada to chaotic Cuba) and the painstakingly crafted and textured sets lend tremendous visual grace and power to Coppola's brilliant wrangling of the priorities of family and kinship and how both are corrupted with the passage of time. But 'The Godfather Part 2' deserves this high place simply for equating a life of crime with the inevitable loss of innocence and humanity. There is no thrill in those blood-splattered moments, in which either Michael consolidates his throne or Vito rises to power (in an unforgettable scene with a gun wrapped in cloth). Rather, there is only the disquieting and emotionally devastating aftermath of guilt, loneliness and the inevitable feeling of death knocking solemnly on the doors.
1- Goodfellas (1990)
Dir- Martin Scorsese
Forget 'The Godfather'. Forget its sequel. Forget 'Once Upon A Time In America'. Forget, for that matter, any gangster film that you might have watched in your lifetime. Because even as there will be many films after and before it to describe crime, the lives of criminals and the working of an organisation of crime, there will be nothing, I repeat nothing as big, bawdy, brilliant and bloody spectacular as 'Goodfellas'. It is, for me (and for countless other lovers of the film), both the finest hour of its director and perhaps the greatest, grittiest gangster film ever made.
So, what is it all about? Virgins would be delighted to know that the film, brilliantly but recklessly adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's non-fiction book 'Wiseguys', starts with a note of wide-eyed and sinful admiration. Henry Hill (a fiery, ribald yet believably befuddled Ray Liotta) announces his intentions early on: 'As far as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster'.
And while the first few reels of the mesmerising, almost magically orchestrated long-take beauty of 'Goodfellas' are gushing with an enthralling time-capsule portrait of the golden years of the titular mobster fellas (Liotta, along with Robert De Niro's coolly malicious Jimmy Conway and Joe Pesci's unforgettably combustible Tommy De Vito), things soon take a drastic, darkly comic turn with the stylish camerawork, split-second editing and superbly crafted and layered plot turn their gaze of bemused wonder to sickeningly hilarious disgust.
It is a gangster film that fires fiercely on every single front. The fast, frenetic and furious bursts of batshit crazy violence and that scathing, profanely brilliant dialogue can send a surge of adrenaline, if you are not too busy laughing to begin with. At the same time, 'Goodfellas' is never, for once, afraid to show us the seamier, uglier truths beneath the sheen and sleaze of a life of crime. This is a world in which you can either survive or die, depending on whether you are Irish or Sicilian. This is a world in which Saturday nights are for wives and Friday evenings are for girlfriends. This is also the strange, hostile world where even your best friends can get you killed without explaining why.
'Goodfellas' has been called by its makers as a film that showed the Mob as 'a war zone'. And it is undoubtedly a lot more than that. There are splendid, indelible touches here that elevate it to the level of a genuine masterpiece; for instance, the odd but distinct female perspective to the anarchy of men, provided by Lorraine Bracco's terrific Karen Hill or those countless moments when the film strikes you hard at the guts and makes you wince at just how emotional it is. Everyone is in terrific form here but all the credit goes to its arguably legendary maker: the one and only Martin Scorsese. It is heartening and unforgettably spectacular to see a director already so dynamic and tireless on this full-throttle form, armed with the eye of a poet and the voice of an angry, impassioned chronicler of the evil that lays concealed beneath those shiny shoes and suits.
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