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By Andy Taylor-Fabe with the heart of
Daily Arts Writer gold, is especially
guilty of this. Sure,
As a rule of thumb, if a movie begins most tough guys in
on a dark and stormy night, you're in this era probably
trouble. "Deuces Wild," a tribute to the adopted some of
New York street-gang flicks of years those mannerisms
past, is a cartoon-like, overly stylized on purpose, but it
melodrama that proves that some genres is unforgivable as
just don't need to be revisited. Director an acting tool. O
Scott Kalvert has apparently not been James Franco y
making the most of his absence since ("Spiderman") is
1996s "The Basketball Diaries," for his the only one with
attempt to create drama and tension in a an excuse, since he Courtesy of United Artists
completely hollow film fails miserably. played Dean in a Dey're gonna throw him a beatin' for bein' in da ney-ba-hood.
The year is 1958, the year the TV movie and does
Dodgers left Brooklyn and the year that bear a striking resemblance to the unintentionally hilarious, with light-
Elvis joined the Army. Leon (Stephen leather-jacket-and-jeans-wearing icon. ning and thunder conveniently starting
Dorfi), a stoic but vicious youth, is the Dorff, who has shown in the past up just as the big showdown between
leader of the Deuces, a gang sworn to that he is capable of some emotional the gangs is coming to a head. When-
protect their block from range, relies on his fur- ever there is something going on that is
outsiders and drugs. Leon n rowed brow to convey even remotely dramatic, slow-motion
and his brother Bobby his anger, despair, etc. is used to make sure that you under-
(Brad Renfro) are espe- * Drea de Matteo (Adrian- stand how important the scene is.
cially concerned about na on "The Sopranos") Without all the gratuitous slo-mo,
"junk" in their neighbor- DEUCES WILD plays Betsy, Leon's girl- the movie would probably be about 45
hood since their brother At Showcase and friend. It's good to see minutes long, which would actually be
Allie Boy overdosed on Quality 16 her branching out. a blessing. Throw in a horribly
heroin he got from Marco . Almost every other anachronistic '80s guitar soundtrack,
(Norman Reedus), the United Artists character is a laughable written by Stewart Copeland (yes, the
leader of the Vipers, a clich6, including Scooch drummer for The Police) and you've
rival gang in Sunset Park. (Frankie Muniz of "Malcolm in the got yourself a winner.
The Vipers are the "bad" gangbe- Middle") as the little kid who is con- The main problem with the movie,
cause drugs are their bread and butter. stantly running to tell the gang that other than the script, is that the atmos-
When one of Marco's associates "the Vipers jumped Little Jackie!" phere isn't consistent. Where "A Bronx
expresses interest in buying a build- The only character who you actually Tale" captured the heat and claustro-
ing on the Deuces' block, which will want to see more of is Father Aldo, phobia of the inner city, "Deuces
invariably become a part of the drug played by Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy Wild" feels like it was written for TNT
operation, Bobby and some of his of "The Sopranos"), whose role is a and produced on a Hollywood sound-
Deuce companions do the only logical cameo at best. stage. No wonder the producers
thing - drop a wheelbarrow full of The so-called drama of the film is shelved the film for over a year.
cinderblocks on the Viper's car,
maiming him. This gets Leon in trou-
ble with the local wiseguy Fritzy,
played by Matt Dillon, since there
was no authorization for the attack.
When Marco is released from prison
and vows to get revenge on Leon for
supposedly ratting him out, the already
tense stage is set for an all-out gang"
war. To make matters worse, Bohhy
falls for Annie (Fairuza Balk), the sister
of Jimmy Pockets, who is a Viper and
Marco's right-hand man.
The acting is, for the most part, atro-
cious, thanks to the fact that most of the w m
gang members rely on bad impressions
of James Dean (i.e. squinty eyes and W e publish in the summer tO i'
protruding lips) and yelling for dramatic Hall, Ce 1St tl
Raucous 'Re-animator
has new life on DVD
By Lyle Henretty covers a way to overcomebrain
Daily Agt ador death, transforming henign corpses
into violent zomhies.
The tagline on Elite Entertain- The first disc includes two com-
ment's re-mastered "Millennium Edi- mentary tracks, one with Gordon fly-
tion" of Stuart Gordon's ing solo and another
"The Re-Animator" with super-schlock pro-
insists the following: ducer Brian uza and
"Herbert West has andtheRE-ANIMAT gvarious cast members
very good head on his PcueSud yukking it up.
shoulders ... And anoth- 7 7SnDisc two is a gift to
er one in a dish on his Mojie: **** j all nerd-dom, with over
desk." If you purchase Features: *** an hour of new inter-
this DVD, you deserve views, several deleted
what you get, and Elbie Elite Entertainment andslengthened scenes,
packs the douhle-disc five TV spots, trailers,
set with so many goodies that it gives story-hoard-to-scene comparisons
everything you could possibly want. and a musical break-down with com-
"Re-Animator" is a creatively per- poser Richard Band.
feet B-horror film that lakes its story The 17-year-old low-budget film
(very) loosely from H.P. Lovecraft's looks and sounds like a new release,
"Herbert West: Re-Animator" tales. and the wry, tongue-in-cheek horror-
Updated to a modern medical gore and bizarre sexuality stands the
school, West (Jeffery Combs) dis- test of time.
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