Gangster Films for inspiration

March 25, 2008 3:59 PM

Help me find inspiration for my gangster short

I'm writing a short with my friends which is very much in the vein of Snatch and Lock Stock. However I would like some recommendations for films like this. Also I am well versed in Quentin Tarintino and Robert Rodriguez so any other work would be much appreciated. Thanks for your help

posted by carefulmonkey to media & arts (17 comments total)

I can suggest probably one of the most underrated gangster films, The Long Good Sunday. It's about an English mobster who is retiring and going to sell his territory to the American mob, but in the middle of the negotiations, his friend gets killed by a guy who turns out to be IRA, and he has to launch a revenge mission. It's very entertaining, if a little more low key than Snatch or Lock Stock.
posted by parmanparman at 4:13 PM on March 25, 2008

Dog Day Afternoon
The Long Good Sunday
A Bout de Souffle
The beat that my heart skipped
Buffalo 66
posted by fire&wings at 4:15 PM on March 25, 2008

Smokin' Aces with the great Jeremy Piven (and many others).

Perhaps Mel Gibsons Payback, which is kind of darkly funny but a pale pale comparison to the original 'Point Blank' a somber surreal masterpeice.

On a more recent note, possibly Eastern Promises or American Gangster. These have no humor in them however, but may provide inspiration. Great movies both of them.
posted by elendil71 at 4:27 PM on March 25, 2008

Check out some old classics. You can never go wrong with Jimmy Cagney (especially in Raoul Walsh's The Roaring Twenties and White Heat. While not in the vein of Ritchie's films, they provide valuable character archetypes and great plot workings.

For possibly the best gangster film go out and rent or buy Leone's Once Upon A Time in America. Long, epic, and beautiful.

I second A Bout de Souffle and any number of other early french new wave entries (especially Shoot the Piano Player) -- these may have more in common (most definitely providing an (in)direct inspiration) with the kinetic work of Ritchie than most.

For some similar thematic inspiration (and for some glorious sides on film violence and its inherent morality) you may want to expand your scope by watching some revisionist westerns. The work of Pekinpah (Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia a must) and, again, Leone (man with no name triology, Once Upon a Time in the West).

And from here its not a big step to some old film noirs. Check out Lang's The Big Heat, Dassin's The Naked City, Huston's The Maltese Falcon, Welles's Touch of Evil, Kubrick's The Killing.

For two straight up great gangster movies be sure you watch Howard Hawks's Scarface (the 1932 version) and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde.

There is literally a whole world of inspiration. I could go on longer, but I gotta stop somewhere. I dont know what you've seen, but I would kill for the chance to watch all these films again for the first time. Have fun!
posted by MPnonot3 at 4:41 PM on March 25, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Seconding Eastern Promises. So good.
posted by MPnonot3 at 4:43 PM on March 25, 2008

Deep Cover.
Layer Cake.
The gangster scene from Death Bed.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:51 PM on March 25, 2008

Dirty Deeds
Two Hands
posted by pompomtom at 5:17 PM on March 25, 2008

Seconding Layer Cake, the book is even better. And if it's English you're after, you can't not see Get Carter. No, not the Stallone one.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:20 PM on March 25, 2008

Heat: DeNiro as an expert armed-robber
Miller's Crossing: Cohen Brother mob movie with lots of twists
The Killing: Stanley Kubrick heist film with Jim Thompson sccript
Brick: modern high-school noir
The Grifters: Jim Thompson con-artist movie
Thief: Michael Mann, James Can as a master thief
Ronin: Robert DeNiro as an international robber/maybe spy
Heist: David Mamet heist movie with way-cool dialog
Tokyo Drifter: Weirdo Japanese gangster flick
The original Scarface
The Al Pacino Scarface
Le Samourai: arty French stuff
The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3: 70s new york


There's hundreds of worthwhile movies in this genre. Memail me if you want more detailed advice.
posted by Bookhouse at 5:32 PM on March 25, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Night and the City is a pretty obvious inspiration for Lock, Stock... You'll probably find some other film noir inspirational as well, especially The Big Sleep (or any other film based on Chandler's books).
posted by ssg at 5:32 PM on March 25, 2008

Check out Jules Dassin, especially "Rififi" and "Night And The City."

Rounders
Kiss Of Death

If you're really on the track of "bumbling race to the loot" caper storylines, you should see "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World," just for source scenarios, though it's not a gangster movie.
posted by rhizome at 5:36 PM on March 25, 2008

Following Bookhouse, if you like "Le Samourai," be sure to check its homages (a la Tarantino): The Killer and Ghost Dog.
posted by rhizome at 5:39 PM on March 25, 2008

In Bruges and the original Italian Job.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:41 PM on March 25, 2008

Check out Kinji Fukasaka's early Seventies five-film series, The Yakuza Papers: Battles Without Honor & Humanity. It's gritty and real and violent and frankly bewildering, and it shows you the heartlessness of gangsterism.

You may want to temper that heartlessness a bit. I know it's a genre reach, but check out the original Mario and Luigi in Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 thriller The Wages of Fear. They're big-hearted hard men under extreme pressure.
posted by breezeway at 6:56 PM on March 25, 2008

parmanparman and firewings obviously meant THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY. (I find this film to be a pretty mediocre gansgter film, but to each his own)

Seconding the original GET CARTER. Michael Caine is such a bastard in this film.

You should be able to find a lot to steal borrow from the following:

GOODFELLAS

POINT BLANK

THE GENERAL

CROUPIER

LAVENDER HILL MOB (its a comedy)

My bried list does not even include black gangster films like BLACK CAESAR, DETROIT 9000, and SLAUGHTER.

You should definitely check out Asian gangster films - here is an earlier thread post (written by me) that give a decent overview of Asian gangster films

Also, I hear good things about MAFIOSO and Netflix mailed it out to me today. Probably worth a look.
posted by cinemafiend at 7:19 PM on March 25, 2008

I meant "brief list."

I also think the crime film STRAIGHT TIME starring Dustin Hoffman & Harry Dean Stanton and based on NO BEAST SO FIERCE by Edward Bunker (Mr.Blue in RESERVOIR DOGS) was one of the best films to have been released last year....
posted by cinemafiend at 7:25 PM on March 25, 2008

Damn...

I meant to say that STRAIGHT TIME was one of the best films to be released on dvd last year.

By the way way, when you say gangster movies, do you mean heist films? I thought that LOCK, STOCK... and SNATCH were crime films in the heist mode as opposed to the gangster mode.

If you like Tarantino and Rodrigez than you should really check out their crime film influences (which pretty much covers most of the films listed in this thread.....). Though I would probably throw in AMERICAN ME and a lot of the AIP biker films from the sixties....

I'm going to stop posting now...
posted by cinemafiend at 7:39 PM on March 25, 2008