Rating:
Director: Scott Kalvert
Producers: Michael Cerenzie, Willi Baer, Fred Caruso, Paul Kimatian
Writers: Paul Kimatian & Christopher Gambale
Director of Photography: John A. Alonzo
Cast: Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Matt Dillon
| DEUCES WILD Rating: Director: Scott Kalvert Producers: Michael Cerenzie, Willi Baer, Fred Caruso, Paul Kimatian Writers: Paul Kimatian & Christopher Gambale Director of Photography: John A. Alonzo Cast: Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Matt Dillon |
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Review by: Ryan
Kugler
5/5/02
A guilty pleasure is a film that is neither good nor good for you, but for some reason or other it strikes a chord (though it's usually embarrassing to admit). Some of my favorites in this category include Point Break, The Fast and the Furious and the all-time champ Roadhouse. I'm not even going to pretend that Deuces Wild comes anywhere close to these, but it's definitely in the same ballpark.
The film takes place in New York during the 1950's and concerns the feud between rival gangs the Deuces and the Vipers. Leon (Stephen Dorff) is the head of the Deuces and its members consist of local toughs who would die for their neighborhood. Leon's younger brother Bobby (Brad Renfro) is the wild card of the gang, and he along with Leon wants nothing more than to avenge the death of their brother by killing the person that got him hooked on heroin. This tragic incident dictates their number one mission: to keep the neighborhood clean of all drugs.
The Deuces world is thrown for a loop when a couple of mob guys decide to open up shop in one of the local stores. They want to run drugs out of it, and in order to take a stand against this, the gang led by Bobby, dump a load of bricks on their car while they're inside it. The car is destroyed and both guys are almost killed. This doesn't sit well with the boss that controls everything. Matt Dillon (who can do this role in his sleep) plays him and when he finds out what Bobby did to these guys, he calls for a meeting with Leon. He tells Leon that he in fact runs the show, and if he wants mob guys to deal drugs out of the store, so be it.
More problems arise when Bobby falls for the sister (Fairuza Balk) of a Viper (Balthazar Getty). In typical Romeo and Juliet fashion, they come from different sides of the tracks and there's no reason why they should be together, but they're both in love and are willing to put their differences aside.
Meanwhile, Viper leader Marco learns what
happened to the mob guys (one of who happens to be his cousin)
and when he gets out of the slammer, he decides to straighten
Leon, Bobby and the rest of the Deuces out once and for all. These
issues and more come to a head during the big rumble between the
two gangs. Blood is shed, lives are lost and the neighborhood
will never be the same.
Director Scott Kalvert (The Basketball Diaries) is no Francis
Ford Coppola and while it might have a similar look and feel,
his second effort is nowhere near the achievement of The Outsiders
or Rumble Fish. His directing is passable at best, but
for the most part, it's too flashy and calls too much attention
to itself. The worst aspect of Kalvert's filmmaking is his constant
use of slow motion. It's so overused (especially in the fight
scenes) that it becomes laughable.
Besides the faults that I found with the filmmaking, I had one key problem with the production in general. The easiest way for me to explain this is through analogy. Deuces Wild is to West Side Story (the reigning classic of the genre) as Young Guns is to The Wild Bunch. Deuces is like one big game of dress-up. The film has the period look and feel down pat, the actors dress, talk and behave like they're straight out of the 50's and the music is perfect at creating the mood of the time, yet it all feels fake. I was entertained by the charade, but didn't forget for a second that these were all actors playing make believe in a setting as phony as the one in Happy Days.
Deuces Wild
is a real mixed bag. As I said up top, it's more of a guilty pleasure
than a good film and I think that it can be enjoyed on that level.
I know that the directing, acting and dialogue are completely
over-the-top and the story is silly, but something about it all
kind of worked for me. I sort of enjoyed the time I spent in the
theater (thankfully, a quick 90 minutes) with this group of characters
and I got a kick out of playing "spot the clichés."
Most importantly, I was never bored and while I can't really recommend
it as a good film (for fear of getting my ass kicked), it's more
satisfying than some of the other stuff that I've endured in movie
theaters this year.
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