$20.24 at Amazon

The plot in a nutshell
This modern day mobster movie tells the story of four wiseguy kids, or knockaround guys.  Mattie, played by Barry Pepper, fails a test of his manhood at 12, and from then on his uncle (played by John Malkovich) and father (played by Dennis Hopper) use him for nothing more than a low level gopher.  He can't succeed in the real world, since his family name and father's reputation follow him.  Finally, desperate to prove to his father he can take over the family business, he enlists the help of his three friends to bring a load of cash in from the west coast.

Of course, it gets a little more complicated than anticipated when some small town folks, including the police, get involved.  The four try to right things, but not before Mattie's Uncle makes an appearance.

Relatively Spoiler Free Thoughts
I was pleasantly surprised by this film.  Pepper's performance is good, but Vin Diesel as his tough guy buddy Taylor, and Seth Green as the squirrelly runner that screws things up in the first place, both showed greater acting chops than I had expected.  In particular, Vin Diesel showed that he just might be at least half as good of an actor as he claims he is.

This isn't a fast paced, big explosions kind of film, and it isn't a great mobster film like the Godfather, or the Road to Perdition that released the same week to DVD.  But I was very impressed by the writing, and some of the relationships.  I wish they'd have been able to give us more background on the four friends, and just how over time they've become so close, but of course you can only fit so much in.

It's important to note that this isn't a comedy either, although there's a couple amusing moments.  No one is played to be a complete fool, although Seth Green's character Marbles does provide the occasional comic relief.

Other reviewers have talked about the relationship of the father and son, or the test of his manhood and how living up to his father's expectations is what this film is all about.  Any film that is decent should work on several levels, and the one I found most interesting was the dichotomy between the younger set of friends and the older.

While words like honor, family and loyalty are nothing but shams for the older generation of mobsters, much like the very mob itself is a mere sham compared to it's hay day, these things clearly ring true for the younger set.  The four younger men stand together, even in the face of danger, while the older generation are concerned only with their own individual well being.  It's this aspect that made the film most interesting for me. 

The best performances come from the younger generation as well.  Malkovich doesn't do much to make the part his, and isn't a particularly convincing mobster.  Hopper has very little screen time, and doesn't do much to make it memorable.  There's also some great work by the older sheriff of Wibeaux (the small town were things go from bad to worse), who along with the deputy, provides an interesting contrast to the big city mob characters.

Rating - Rent It.
A good Vin Diesel film - that's almost a rarity.  But check out this movie if for nothing else to see his speech in the small town bar about what it really means to be a 'tough guy'.  I'm actually looking forward to him in roles that force him to act, rather than just appear.

Spoiler Laden Thoughts
So let's talk about the plot in slightly greater detail...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
As I mentioned above, the loyalty, and the awful result for Marbles and Scarpa, is what really caught my interest.  The film shows the good within the bad (the young mobsters) and the bad within the good (the sheriff and deputy).  Life isn't as black and white as we'd like it, and that's one of the several areas this film explores.

The fatalism combined with loyalty and self sacrifice of Taylor, Diesel's character, was the high point of the film.  For him, right and wrong are very straight forward, and his loyalty to his friends a top priority, right up to the final scene when he's willing to die to save Mattie.  Uncle Teddy was right - if Taylor had been in that basement when he was 12 instead of Mattie, he would have pulled the trigger without hesitation.  But that's not because Taylor is a bad man - it's because everything is black and white for him.  Mattie sees all the gray.

I did think it was a bit odd that they shot Scarpa before dealing with the local law at the end.  It seems to me that they would have realized that a fire fight in a small space like that was just as likely to take them out as their opponents, but the heat of the moment could have easily taken control.

If you have time, check out the deleted scenes with the director commentary.  There's some interesting stuff there, including the fact that several other key story lines ended up on the cutting room floor.  There was plans to have the sheriff double cross the deputy, and even to show more about Mattie and his nick name 'dimes'.  Nothing that was cut shouldn't have been, but it does do a good job of showing the thought processes in the editing stage.