GwydionMW Definitely not realistic. Every damn character is improbable. A mob boss trusting a delicate operation to someone who's not worked for him for years is ridiculous. Likewise him recruiting three incompetents and not picking up obvious signs that one of them should be kept well away from the 'front line'.But if the intention was humour, there is a lot too much real suffering for any normal person to laugh.Also it's racist. There is a major black character, but he does nothing sensible. Other blacks are shown as incompetent.And evil characters get their own sort of heaven? What sort of fool scripted it?

Predrag I often wonder if director's purposely set out to cast as many eccentrics as possible. We've seen it when Abel Ferrara cast Willem Dafoe and Chris Walken in New Rose Hotel, combining seemingly two of the most bizarre actors in Hollywood. And don't forget At Close Range, which combined Crispin Glover and Walken. Also, Steve Buscemi and Walken were together in Pulp Fiction. Are you noticing a common element? That's right: Walken! He's here in a bit, but pivotal, role as a mob boss who employs reformed former associate Jimmy "The Saint" (Garcia), nicknamed The Saint due to his former aspirations to be a priest, to do a simple "action". Well, Jimmy and his crew screw up big time and the crime boss, known on the streets as the "man with the plan", tells Jimmy to leave town or else...Jimmy has a moral conflict due to the fact that "the man with the plan" refuses to offer Jimmy's crew the same mercies. Things gradually digress, with Jimmy's crew finding themselves the victims of a progression of assassinations at the hands of one Steve Buscemi, known here as Mr. Shhh. Treat Williams gives an astounding performance as a complete loon. All in all, everyone does well here. One must question the wisdom of Garcia's character allowing the oldest and the most unstable of the crew to perform the most demanding part of their seemingly simple task. Garcia himself and Winn would have been much better in that instance. The acting was superb and the script (minus the trash talk) was edgy and smart. Quite enjoyable if you're in the mood for an old-fashioned shoot-em-up with post-modern attitude.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

skeptic skeptical Don't ask me why, but I watched this movie twice. Maybe because it was set in Denver, where I grew up. The setting of this story seemed to be a very different place from the city of Denver familiar to me. Or perhaps I watched this production a second time simply to verify that this was not a great film. Fait accompli.There was some good acting in this production, no doubt, but the characters were almost all caricatures. And then there's the story itself. The Andy Garcia character has managed to extricate himself from the world of the mob and "go civilian". But then his old boss has him chased down to do one final "action"—not a "work", but an "action". He is supposed to not kill but frighten away the lover of the boss's son's former girlfriend so that the son (who has become a pederast--what?) can be reunited with the love of his life. Who does the Andy Garcia character call on to help him carry out the "action"? A team of misfit losers, all of whom have done time in prison and are therefore of questionable competence. Predictably, the incompetent team members prove incompetent here as well, and end up killing not only the guy whom they are supposed to scare, but also his girlfriend. The boss, who is a paralyzed, ghoulish Christopher Walken character, decides to "buckwheat" the lot of them, which we are told means make them suffer before they die. However, he gives the Andy Garcia character the opportunity just to leave town, which he ends up not doing because he's too busy trying to save all of the others.There is so much detail to this densely embellished story, but none of it really adds up to anything. I feel as though the screenwriter was trying to jam all of his interesting ideas into a single script. Sometimes less is more, and this story could have benefited from the removal of some of the colorful but ultimately irrelevant "script- stuff", for lack of a better expression. Did the son of the boss really have to be a pederast? Did the Vietnam Vet really have to use corpses as his punching bag? It was all too much. Like eating a dozen donuts and a bag of potato chips and a submarine sandwich and a candy bar, and maybe washing it all down with a couple of beers.Steve Buscemi makes a short appearance (maybe that's why I gave this a second chance?), and there is a sort of happy ending when the druggy- prostitute pregnant survivor of the story moves to Florida to raise her child and become a masseuse. Honestly, I don't even know what is worth reporting here. It would take way too many words! So let me just end by avowing that I definitely will not give this high-calorie, low nutrient production a third try.

Richie-67-485852 This is a good movie. What is a good movie then? It is entertaining and has a good story line and is acted out and directed well so that you don't have to do a thing but sit back and let this movie pull you into its world. It doesn't fail on that pull either. You will be introduced to thoughts and ideas in the underworld that are only known by those thugs that hang out there. Of course, these are men and women with a soul too and that is what comes across. Sure, they are on the wrong side of the tracks, but think for a moment that "there go I but for the grace of god" and you will be alright watching them go through their daily messed up lives...There are some stand-out performances and I would say that all actors give them. When it is their turn to act and convince us, they do. This is entertainment. The title throws you off, but after seeing the movie, you make allowances for it. One last thing. If you like malts, you know ice cream malts, well, have a pitcher ready when you watch this film. It is no fun to drink alone....enjoy