The Excitement of the Mob Genre

“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”

-Henry Hill, Goodfellas

Some of the most ever-exciting crime genre movies that I have seen, are able to double between a thrilling power-fantasy and a cautionary tale of mortality, greed, deception, and close bonds. A certain side to the ‘crime genre coin’ whose DNA revolves around the ‘fun’ of being bad while also being a 24-frames-per-second public service announcement embroiled in historical storytelling, as well as moral teaching, is none other than the Mafia/Mob genre. This genre is not only synonymous with Hollywood and filmmaking as a whole, but pop culture even.

I would even bet that before you had seen Brian De Palma’s remake of Scarface, you had already heard the phrase, “Say hello to my little friend!!!” Or how about, “I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse,” from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Part 1. Certainly for me, I had heard of those quotes even before seeing both movies. I mean who hasn’t used or heard those references? As of right now, gangster flicks do not seem to be as much in production as they had been some decades ago, which is a crying shame and a cinematic travesty. Thankfully though, the genre is far from six feet under. Thanks to classical titles such as the aforementioned Scarface and Godfather, as well as its sequel, along with Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas, the on-screen, white collared world of criminality is on a Hollywood pedestal that I will forever bow to.

Of course it’s not just the Italian-American gangsters, the Irish-Italians, or the straight Sicilian dons from the Old Country that deserve all the credit for making this genre so entertaining. Despite the fact that culture does play a significant role in gangster films, it does not and should not matter whose face takes up most of the screen time. While America may have the deepest grip on the gangster-ensignied gun of cinema, the Asian side of gangster films is, I believe, an underrated market with an overall, insultingly low count of eyes. Thankfully, Asian cinema as a whole is a fairly popular corner of cinema, with, I believe, the Koreans having the most eyes on them. But overall, the Asian crime genre is an experience that, to me, does not feel as talked about, despite it oozing straight, fearless savagery and creativity.

Indonesian thrillers like the ballet of death that is The Raid Part 1 and 2, both directed by Gareth Evans, or the unfathomably violent, The Night Comes For Us, directed Timo Tjahjanto, are just quick choosings to let any curious film lover know that not every gangster/mobster needs to trace its roots to Italy. Won-Tae Lee’s The Gangster The Cop The Devil, takes both sides of South Korea’s law, a mobster and officer, and forces them to team up against a vicious serial killer. When the unstoppable force of a slickly tongued, agile officer teams with the immoveable object that is the bare-knuckled, brute of a gangster, an interesting dynamic of vigilantism ensues between otherwise two enemies.

Despite the two teaming up to rid South Korea of the devilish mystery of death, the gangster and the cop do play rounds of cat-and-mouse with each other. What I find fascinating enough about the film to include it within this article, isn’t just that it is an entertaining film. It’s the fact that the white collared mobster and the police officer are uniting together, if only for a shared time and despite their personal agendas. The enthralling world of Mob/Mafia-based storytelling clearly shows no bounds with where it can transpire within the country, no matter if it is fictional, factual, or a mixture of both.

Climbing to the highest of highs of criminality and shaking hands with death as they fall to their lowest of low’s, is the name of the game when it comes to the Mob genre. Who’s next and when, serves as a question in the back of my mind as a mob film’s runtime burns through its course. Sure, the mob genre remains to be the power fantasy that strums the cords of an inner monologue that tells you being the bad guy in various creative mediums is fun. Of course, it’s all entertainment. It’s all fiction. It is all Hollywood magic. Even if it is based upon real events, whatever “fun” there is to be had, does not last. Nothing is meant to leave the screen, except for the cautionary tale that eventually dominates over the fantasy.

Remember, Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Scarface, dies in the end. His lust for wealth and power was his greatest strength. Yet, such a strength led to the trigger of a shotgun being pointed and pulled to finally end him. Ray Liotta as Henry Hill might have gotten away from the Mafia through the help of witness protection. However, Scorsese shows us a man with no one left; Henry remains with no friends, with his associates either being dead, or in prison because of him. Michael in the Godfather, Part 1, is given a lifestyle that was never meant for him, with his wife heartbroken at seeing him fill the shoes of his father, as well as his brother having been shot dead. Sure, Michael’s father, Vito, left the lifestyle luckily from natural causes, but let’s not forget him miraculously surviving being shot many times earlier on within the film’s events. If so much is given to our ‘gangsteristic’ main characters, it is only after so much has been taken away. Is it even worth it now, and will it be worth it in the future?

Despite me not mentioning this film until now, Scorsese's The Irishman, also has to have one of the most depressing, gloomy, and lonesomely alienating latter parts of a mafia movie that I have ever seen. That ending portion to the Irishman is one that I cannot properly do justice to through description… See, within this white-collared world of pin-stripped suited debauchery, ‘live fast, die young’ is the tagline for most of our main characters. Such lifestyles won’t end with them laying on a table sized amount of stacked dollar bills overlooking an ocean-view... The duality of such a life shines through the duality of man, as the Mob genre shows us the glitz, the glamour, the respect of such a lifestyle… and then the reality of it all. At the end of it all, you better say goodnight to the bad guy, because they won’t be at the top forever.