This is not the 1947 film but a 1995 re-make of the famous gangster flick of the same name. While the classic film had one brutally nasty guy, this one has a whole cast full of them....too nasty, frankly. I watched this once and was fairly interested in it. A couple of years later, took a second look and found it so sleazy and I couldn't finish it.
David Caruso, who obtained a lot more fame in television shows than movies, still was interesting for me to watch as he played Victor Mature's old role. Caruso is one of the better actors I've seen when it comes to expressing his emotions just by his facial looks. It seems fashionable to knock him, but I've always been a fan of his work.
Nicholas Cage plays Richard Widmark's psycho character "Tommy Udo" but is called "Little Junior Brown" in this film. Personally, I liked Widmark's performance and character much more.
A lot of people, especially 20-somethings, like these modern tough films with brutal characters and tons of profanity, but the characters in this movie were so nasty that the film never really caught on with anybody.
It certainly had one thing going for it: a very good cast that also included Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport, Ving Rhames, Stanley Tuccki, Helen Hunt and Kathryn Erbe.
To summarize: it's not that bad: it just has too hard an edge to it.
