Mobsters: Charlie Lucky

This story is to the legend of New York Organized Crime as "Young Guns" is to the legend of Billy the Kid.

"Mobsters" is a very slick production, directed by Michael Karbelnikoff, with a very cohesive look and feel to it throughout, one of the things I like very much about this movie.

Starring Christian Slater as Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, with three other young unknowns as his henchmen, ladiesman and part-time psychotic killer Bennie "Bugsy" Siegel, dapper Frank Costello, and, most importantly, the brain Meyer Lansky, Mobsters tells about the birth of organized crime in America.

Unlike the Godfather Part II with its fictionalized Vito Corleone, Mobsters used real characters Charlie Lucky and Meyer Lansky as the architects of the New York crime syndicate. While there is no doubt this movie is jazzed up for entertainment’s sake, it does touch on most of the pertinent facts known about the career of Luciano and Lansky, and in this sense is a true to life dramatization of how it really happened.

What Went Down...

In the 1920s, Charlie Luciano was a street punk running with Frank Costello. They came upon a fight wherein Lansky was getting beat silly but would not quit. Impressed, Luciano befriended Lansky and his sidekick Siegel, who, as Jews, were ostracized. The four friends became a gang of their own, against all others. Siegel brought impressive fighting skills to the mix, together with an amoral attitude toward killing and an unpredictable temper. Costello was able to rub elbows with politicians and became J. Edgar Hoover’s host at the racetrack. Lansky was the organizer – he was able to see opportunities that nobody else could. Charlie was leader because he had the presence that people expected of a leader.

Charlie, Lansky and crew hooked up with Arnold Rothstein, reputedly the man who fixed the 1918 world series, a gambler and bootlegger. Rothstein, also a Jew, taught the budding gangsters the finer points of hoodlumry.

At that time crime was dominated by the "Mustache Petes" older Sicilian immigrants who bullied the legitimate Italians for protection money, ran the numbers game, prostitution, and so forth. New York was split between Joe "The Boss" Masseria (Anthony Quinn) and Salvatore Maranzano, the mustache Petes. Charlie’s gang was getting enough liquor business to sooner or later come to the attention of the mustache Petes, so Lansky devised a plan whereby they could take over the whole NY underworld.

Before the plan could be fully implemented, Charlie was kidnapped by Maranzano, beaten, cut down the side of his face to the bone, and left for dead. But he didn’t die. That was where he earned the name "Lucky", and it stuck.

Pretending to side up with Masseria (Quinn) he staged an assassination attempt to get Joe the Boss’s confidence. At an Italian meal, Lucky excused himself and went to the toilet. Siegel, Costello, and Lansky entered the restaurant with 12 gauge shotguns and repeatedly shot Masseria over his spaghetti. The same fate soon overtook Maranzano. Lucky Luciano was the crime lord of NY. The final scene showed Lucky presiding over the syndicate which he eventually formed into the five crime families of NY, after destroying the German and Irish gangs led by Dutch Schultz and Legs Diamond.

Christian Slater did a great job as Charlie Lucky, adding a lot of personality to what could have been a brutal, somber character. Patrick Dempsey did a fine job as Lansky, the man behind the scenes. Richard Grieco brought Bugsy Siegel to life as well. Costello was just there, there was no real personality. Great support by F. Murray Abraham as Arnold Rothstein.

Also, tremendous over-the-top portrayal of "Mad Dog" Coll, the psychotic killer for hire by Nicolas Sadler.

The directing and editing are top notch, with sumptuous color dripping off everything and great montages and fast cuts to accentuate the action.

If you like gangster films and want to see one that is a little more true to the real story than usual, try Mobsters.

Also recommended are "Casino", "Goodfellas", "Scarface", "Dillinger", and "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond".