Search - This Thing of Ours on DVD

HBO-grade quality, niche market of organized crime

Pork Chop | Lisbon, Portugal | 01/28/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This Thing of Ours (2003), from Danny Provenzano, is a film aimed at

the niche market of organized crime. It has an HBO-grade quality,

meaning a step above a TV movie, yet clearly below theatrical

quality.



What makes this picture interesting is first and foremost, the fact

that it takes viewers for a ride in another time and space, and

makes them forget about themselves, which is an essential quality of

good entertainment.



Secondly, there's the soundtrack composed by Joe Perry, lead

guitarist of Aerosmith, with a cameo appearance by the bassist, Brad

Whitford towards the end of the movie - a plus for fans of that

great rock band.



Although successful overall, with a necessary mix of both ugly and

beautiful numbers (yin and yang), adolescent and mature, classical

and cheap pop songs, there's an ecletic mix of music that at times

has the movie over-indulging in a MTV music video style of

narrative. Also, the varied numbers may irritate a number of

viewers, from the numerous teenager loud-metal and dime a dozen

popsongs.



Third, the acting is certainly credible, and viewers will find

interesting some characters, especially those of Frank Vincent,

Vincent Pastore and James Caan. Unfortunately, a number of other

actors, although excellent in their professionalism and somewhat

innocuous on screen, are totally unknowns in the business, AFAIK.



Fourth, the script introduces the concept of old-school gangsters

forging ahead past the year 2000, with computers, cell phones,

defeating communication links based on coded algoritms of satellites

in orbit through hackers. The dollar amounts of $50 million and $1

to $2 billion in the heist are staggering, and questionable in their

realism. As such, it suggests sophisticated technology as the new

religion, such that even the FBI falls into its trap, as an agent is

caught planting evidence on closed circuit TV at a gangster's

dwelling.



Visually, this is a quasi-wide screen release, that is effective,

the editing very good, the images clear, with good zooms from time

to time, to stoke the excitement of viewers.



The first third of the movie seems to start a bit slowly, with dry

lines of dialog, but gets better as the story unfolds, greatly

assisted by the soundtrack that compensates for excitement, where

often none exists visually.



There are cliches, obviously (or essential elements) characterizing

this specific underworld group ...wine, spaghetti, gardening of

tomatoes, cussing, eating, lasagna as well as the selectin of

wise-guys by their external appearance, showing the techniques of

collecting money from bad debtors, victims thrown into the trunks of

a car, etc.



The downside of this picture, is perhaps the questionable graphic

nature of blood packs exploding during point-blank range rubouts,

which many will find unnecessary and distasteful, or the scenes of

electric shocks, intimidation, etc.



While this work is very professional, perhaps more could have been

done in bringing forward a few extra actors, big names that could

have brought in more charisma, class, realism and gravitas vs. some

actors with the tendency in being lightweights mixed with the 3 or

4 big names.



The outcome of the tale, is that ... even the best underworld

organizations show no gratitude for a few billion in profits brought

in by the 3 new members who masterminded the operation, preferring

to eliminate the risk of future stool pigeons by taking them out."