This Weekend’s Film Festival - Real-Life Cops & Criminals

With Michael Mann's PUBLIC ENEMIES arriving in theaters this week, This Weekend's Film Festival takes a look at other cinematic tales of real-life cops and robbers. There's a tale of Ness and Capone. A story of two different undercover cops. The tragedy of a gangster turned rat. And the sexiest bank robbers ever to hit the screen. Join the crew and enjoy the ride.

Brian DePalma's THE UNTOUCHABLES tells the tale of Elliot Ness's crusade to put notorious criminal Al Capone behind bars. As I said in my original review, "This film is a gritty crime drama, which pits a good guy against a bad guy. However, in 1920s Chicago the line between good guys and bad guys is quite blurred…" Kevin Costner plays Ness as a by-the-books Washington agent who doesn't know how tough the streets of Chicago are. Jim Malone, played in an Oscar-winning performance by Sean Connery, joins Ness's team called The Untouchables, and becomes a mentor to the naïve fed. Along with rookie sure-shot George Stone (Andy Garcia) and nerdy accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), the team ruffles the feathers of Capone, disrupting his operations and ruining his dinner parties. Though Capone has murdered and robbed and run booze, the cops line up a tax evasion case on him. DePalma builds the story like a tense thriller, crafting a solid "men on a mission" mob yarn.

Saturday is undercover cop day. First we have Mike Newell's DONNIE BRASCO. Johnny Depp plays FBI agent Joe Pistone, who infiltrates the mob as Donnie Brasco. His in is low-level thug Lefty, played wonderfully by Al Pacino. Lefty has always been overlooked in the mob world and all he wants is a little respect. The gangster becomes a mentor to Brasco, because he needs to mentor someone to feel important. "But down deep the film isn’t about cops and criminals, but about loyalty. If you’re an undercover cop, who do you stay loyal to — the job that puts you in danger every moment and takes you away from your family, or the criminal who has become your friend?," to quote my original review. Depp and Pacino give some of the best performances of their careers in this nail bitter crime tale. In this world of murder, death lurks behind every mistake.

In Sidney Lumet's SERPICO, Al Pacino plays a character on the other side of the law from Lefty. Frank Serpico is a young cop who wants to change the way NYC police force does business. He dresses in plain clothes and develops informants on the streets. He wants nothing to do with kickbacks or blackmail, which makes him very suspect to his fellow cops. Serpico doesn't know whom to trust and his efforts to root out corruption are nerve wrecking. Lumet filmed on the dirty streets of New York in the '70s when crime was rising. Serpico is a young man of his era — tired of the hypocrisy of the generation before. He wants to make difference, but the world holds him back at every turn. As I said in my original review, "The film begins with him shot, so the viewer is on the edge from the start." Through a great performance from Pacino, once again, Lumet delivers a classic.

GOODFELLAS is nearly 20 years old, but it became a classic right upon its release. Along with the first two THE GODFATHER films, it is not only one of the best gangster films ever made, but simply one of the best films. Based on the life of Henry Hill, played in the film in a star-making turn by Ray Liotta, the story chronicles Hill's rise and fall in the mob. He starts out parking cars for neighborhood gangsters and eventually plays a part in one of the biggest armed robberies in U.S. history. What takes Hill down isn't one mistake, but the lifestyle. Once drugs move into the scene, Hill's control over his life begins to slip away. Martin Scorsese's masterfully uses voice over to get into the mind of Hill and his wife Karen, played by Oscar nominee Lorraine Bracco. They fall for the glamour and power of the world — it's the drug they are most addicted to. Hill's best friends are paranoid Jimmy Conway, played with subtly by Robert DeNiro, and the loose canon Tommy DeVito, played in an iconic Oscar winning performance by Joe Pesci. As I said in my original review, "Scorsese finds great irony in the ending of Hill’s story." Hill gets what some might think is a dream life in the end, but as they say, one man's dream is another man's nightmare.

Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE is about young people and crime. The first more so than the latter. Clyde Barrow, played like a charming fool by Warren Beatty, strolls into the small town of Bonnie Parker, played with beauty and fire by Faye Dunaway, one of the cinemas all time great beauties, and strolls out with her by his side. Bonnie had no excitement in her life until Clyde came along and gave her enough excitement in a short period of time to fill a lifetime. Through humor, the film captures the carefree attitude of the gang. Yet, those moments of levity are often punctuated with bloodshed. The bank robbing life isn't as glamorous as Bonnie thought it might be. While Bonnie lives for the thrill, Clyde lives for the legend. This is the only way he sees he'll ever make his mark on the world. Together Bonnie and Clyde achieved something they would have never done apart. They were meant for each other. But as I said in my original review, "Just because the guy is perfect for you doesn’t mean he’s the right man. Now that’s tragic."

To experience the thrills all you have to do is head to the local videostore, update the Netflix queue, check out Zap2It.com for TV listings, visit HelloMovies.com to find online streams, or help support the site by buying the films on DVD or Blu-ray at the links below.