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Deuces Wild

2002, Movie, R, 97 mins

Deuces Wild: Review

DEUCES WILD
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After a seven-year hiatus, The Basketball Diaries director Scott Kalvert returns to wring every last cliché out 1950s juvenile delinquent movies, without adding anything particularly fresh to the formula. The year is 1958, the place is a Brooklyn neighborhood called Sunset Park. For the past three years, members of the Deuces gang have been keeping their turf free of the rival Vipers, and — most importantly to head Deuce Leon Anthony (Stephen Dorff) — heroin. Leon started the gang after he found his kid brother, Allie Boy (Blake Bashoff), dead from an overdose. Leon is sure that Allie Boy's hotshot came straight from Marco Vendetti (Norman Reedus), a thug who went to prison for dealing drugs shortly after Allie Boy's death. The neighborhood quiet is shattered when a couple of wiseguys come sniffing around an empty storefront on Deuces' territory and Leon's other brother, Bobby (Brad Renfro), shoos them away by dumping a load of cinder blocks off the roof and onto their car. Sitting in the driver's seat is Philly (Louis Lombardi), Marco's cousin and bagman for Fritzy Zennetti (Matt Dillon), the local gangster who really runs the neighborhood. Marco already hates Leon — he's convinced Leon fingered him to the cops — and now that he's been sprung, he's returning to the old neighborhood on a mission that has Fritzy's blessing: Round up the Vipers and wipe the Deuces from the streets of Brooklyn. Complicating matters is the inevitable Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story romance between Bobby and Annie (Fairuza Balk), the heavily mascara-ed sister of Viper Jimmy Pockets (Balthazar Getty). The main inspiration for the film's look appears to have been Bruce Davidson's photos of the Jokers, a real-life Brooklyn gang whom Davidson shot over the course of a few months in 1959. But while the film captures the look, the script feels as if whole sections are missing. None of this would matter much if the all-important rumbles play out, but they don't. What appears to be carefully choreographed fights are altogether ruined by crude editing, ridiculous effects and a criminal overuse of slow-motion photography. If you're looking for some real kicks, check out Showtime's inspired Rebel Highway, a series of original movies in which edgy directors remake such vintage American International Pictures titles as ROADRACERS, GIRLS IN PRISON and SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! Better yet, troll the cult section of your local video store for the real deal. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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