Remember Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction and their sweet, mad, intense, ‘Don’t you hurt him!’ love? Well, Tommy (Michael Pitt) and Rosie (Nina Arianda) follow in their silver screen tradition. Inseparable, naïve, finally incapable. Rob the Mob is a crime drama-cum-caper set in tough-talkin’ New York in the 90s but with the Buick, smoky feel of the 70s.
Tommy is from the Bronx and Rosie from Queens. They’re lovebirds but none too bright. At one point when Rosie is voluntarily (is she nuts?) interviewed by hack Jerry Cardozo (Ray Romano), she says, all dewy-eyed, “He’s just like a genius!” speaking of beau Tommy. Well, he sort of is, maybe, just, but not really, and we recognise our two heroes are walking a very thin dangerous line. So what’s the story? – which, by the way, is based on a true story. You couldn’t script it . . . well, you can. And Jonathan Fernandez has, and done a pretty good job of it.
It’s Valentine’s day and Tommy and Rosie decide to bust a florists with a gun-totin’ granny in charge. They get caught, end up doing time. Once out, Rosie finds a job at a debt collection agency, using industrial methods to extract funds from the poor. Rosie wants to go straight and cajoles Tommy into working alongside her, which boss, the endlessly effervescent Dave Lovell (Griffin Dunne) agrees to – he’s an ex-con himself. But Tommy ain’t too keen and the writing’s on the wall and the Uzi in the refrigerator.
Tommy goes in person to watch the trial of mobster Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano whose testimony could undo mafia king John Gotti, boss of the Gambinos. There’s a brilliant line in court which goes: “There’s no such thing as the mafia. It’s just an ugly ethnic stereotype.” A searing indictment on political-cultural society today. Tommy finds out that the various mafia social clubs around town are, amazingly, gun-free zones. “Guns and wise guys,” says Gravano, “it’s a bad mix.”
Epiphany, light-bulb moment. Tommy decides to rob these joints, to literally ‘rob the mob’, and along with Rosie to live as a latter-day Robin Hood (except with themselves as the poor, meaning his/their intentions are somewhat less altruistic!). Cardozo, too, labels them a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, and while you appreciate the acting skills of Pitt and Arianda, they lack the star quality and compelling charm of counterparts Beatty and Dunaway.
Tommy shouts “this is a stick-up”, and Rosie drives the getaway car. At first, they are laughably inadequate: Tommy can’t control his Uzi and when he runs out the club, the car door gets jammed and he can’t get in, and panic stations. But then, surprise-surprise, our sweethearts get cocky, get a taste for it. And Tommy shows no respect for these aging mobsters, and we just know that’s a bad idea. Then Tommy robs an old-timer mafioso of his wallet and discovers more than dollar bills: a list of the mafia family tree, names, ranks, responsibilities, the lot, proving the existence of an organised crime syndicate, and putting pay to that earlier denial. Now everybody wants the list, but Tommy and Rosie realise what a great bargaining chip it is, how it could save their sweet, precious, dirty lives.
‘Big Al’ (an unrecognisable Andy Garcia), local mafia big cheese, ain’t happy at all, and Garcia plays him with quiet menacing undertones, mixing guns and gore with fine cuisine and rice balls. Meanwhile, Tommy and Rosie plan their escape, marriage and ice-skating and new lives in the ‘paradise’ of Florida. And this, finally, is what the movie is about: illusions or delusions. Neither Tommy nor Rosie have ever actually visited Florida, it’s all a dream, photographs in magazines.
Will it all come crashing down? Big Al preaches, ‘If you don’t wanna pay the price, what do you do? . . . Don’t do anything wrong.’ And this seems to be the moral of the tale, even if it is a bit cheesy coming from the big cheese. Tommy comes from a corrupt home with broken dreams, and a mother (Cathy Moriarty) with a broken heart. He genuinely tries to do good and make amends but the damage is done. Still, there is always Rosie, salvation, love.
Rob the Mob is a very watchable movie. The acting is impeccable from all, and the plot doesn’t drag and moves at an easy pace. It mixes gangster life with everyday domesticity, and contains genuine suspense. We see very average people, sweethearts and complacent gangsters alike. But our emotions are never heightened, and do we really care in the end? This is Tarantino without the wit, Scorsese without the fear, and the music is less cool; and aside of our protagonists, the rest are sketchily drawn, lives hinted at. But it’s good enough, and yes, you do hope they make it to ‘paradise’.
The film is available to download on iTunes from Monday 22nd September.
Verdict ★★★
Here is the trailer to tempt you:
