![]() ![]() Winona Ryder rounds out the cast as Richard’s wife, Deborah, who has no inkling of Richard’s real job. Freezy” Pronge, a fellow hitman who teaches Kulkinski about the various methods of using cyanide and helps him perfect his method of freezing bodies to hide time of death. Ray Liotta matches Shannon’s intensity as mob boss Roy DeMeo, who plucks Kulkinski out of obscurity at a mob porn developing lab and sends him out to take out a wide swath of loan defaulters, rivals and more. Shannon expertly channels the unflinching and ruthless nature of Kulkinski, taking out friends as easily as taking out bums on the street. It’s not known exactly how many men Kulkinski killed but the number is somewhere between 100-250, depending on which source you are dealing with. Michael Shannon turns in another incredible, intense peformance as Richard Kulkinski, one of the most prolific and ruthless killers in history. It ends on a very anticlimactic note after a serviceable crime/heist story but it may be worth a rent if you’re a fan of The Rock, as it’s better than both Snitch and Pain & Gain, both of which actually came out in theaters.īland and uninteresting are definitely not words you would use to describe the other mob themed crime movie that hit DVD last week, The Iceman. ![]() ![]() The actual crime Empire State is based on actually took place in California at Dunbar Armored Car, so they could have taken some liberties with the story and made it more exciting or interesting. It does attempt to capture the look and feel of NYC in the 80’s with the cars, buildings and clothing though. Empire State tells the story in the most boring and straightforward way possible going from A to B to C with no creative twists or style. Pain & Gain was loud, offensive and covered the actual, interesting true story in awful characters and terrible attempts at humor. The Rock saves any lack of charisma coming from Liam Hemsworth and even though he’s front and center on the Empire State box art, he’s in it for way too short of a time and doesn’t become a major factor till the last 45 minutes or so.Įmpire State kind of has the opposite problem of The Rock’s other “based on true events” crime thriller from this year, Pain & Gain. The movie also spends all of it’s time with Chris, I think it would have been much stronger if maybe half of the time was spent with Chris and seeing him planning and struggling with whether or not he should take the money and the other half spent with The Rock and him investigating. Things happen around him but you never get a feel for why he wants the money or how it affects him. Chris doesn’t seem to have any sense of agency in the events that are happening to him. The main problem with the movie is that Liam Hemsworth is incredibly bland in the role and events just play out linearly and without any flair. The Rock co-stars as Detective James Ransome, who is called about the various attempted heists at Empire. The lax security and attitudes of the company prove incredibly tempting to Chris, who initially steals a bag of money but word gets around to the local Greek mob, who want an even bigger score. Liam Hemsworth stars as Chris Potamitis, son of a Greek immigrant who is trying to get into the police academy but, due to a past incident with his friend Eddie, gets rejected and is forced into the less prestigious job of an armed guard for Empire State Armored Trucks. One is a gripping and intense bio of one of the most dangerous and prolific killers in history and the other is a bland heist movie based on the third largest heist in US history. Last week, two movies made their way to DVD/Blu Ray, both dealing with the NYC/NJ mob activities of the 70’s and 80’s.
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