Meyer Lanski Biography

The author is deleted. The biography of Meyer Lansky - one of the most famous criminal authorities in the United States - is incredibly entertaining. The Jew of Polish origin emigrated from the Russian Empire, he is an example of what Self-Made Man is called today: he began with buttlery during the dry law, and later became almost the founder of the international gambling business.

Lansky was associated with Charles Luciano and Al Capone, took part in the creation of a national criminal syndicate and over the years of his “career” allegedly got about millions of dollars, which the FBI could not be found. With such a wealth of material, it is surprising that the film of Itan Rockwei looks like a mediocre parody of the classic of gangster cinema.

The image of Lansky has long been haunted by filmmakers - there are many films about him or about the events that he was a participant. It is amazing that although the mouth does not appear so often for the entire timing of the film, his hero has been worked out more in detail than Lansky in two hours of Rockwey's film. This role is played by two: Harvey Keitel plays Lanski in the year, and John Magaro - in almost all flashbacks.

The first gives either clicked or simply ridiculous replicas that can be fitted for a trailer, but in a film that claims to be the “serious bayopic”, they sound stupid. Only the acting game saves from the bad dialogues of Keitel: it is difficult to ignore his charm, boyish mischief and gleam in his eyes when Lansky recalls youth and ironizes moral norms adopted in society.

But Magaro plays Lanski so that he does not shock with his compositeness and does not inspire fear, although precisely these qualities were distinguished by the “accountant of the mafia”. Against the background of Keitel Lansky Magaro in his youth, a rather dull character, far from what you can read about the prototype. In the film, two storyline lines can be distinguished.

The first is, in fact, Lansky’s memories of his life during meetings with Stone in a diner. The second is the resumed investigation of the FBI against Lansky. But the line with the FBI pops up so rarely and fragmentary that the question arises, why was it even written? Apparently, Rockway wanted to pay special attention to the fact that those in power in the United States very quickly forgot that Lansky once helped them calculate the Nazis in the territory of New York and get rid of them and opened on it.

Or, on the contrary, to demonstrate the indifference of Lansky to the authorities that were never an obstacle to him, because he is not at all worried about the investigation and even forgives Stone FBI assistance. In any case, sometimes these rare episodes create the feeling that they suddenly turned on some other film, which is not so much about Lansky as about the authorities' attempts to find these either mythical or quite real hidden millions.

From the point of view of biographicality, Meyer Lansky is quite reliable, although Rockway chose to ignore some of the important events in the life of criminal authority. For example, his second marriage. But the main advantage of the film is an attempt to portray Lanski as unbiased as possible, not to denigrate, but also not to justify it. In addition to the fact that by the age of 80, the screen Lansky understands and accepts everything to himself, Stone constantly asks him uncomfortable questions about morality and faith and evaluating his own actions from these two positions.

It is as if he really wants to be a “godmother” or “glorious guys”, but he is infinitely far from them. About premieres in telegram t.