Board 8 > Board 8 Watches and Ranks Organized Crime Films: THE RANKING

(+) Yeah! (+)

Over the last 3.5 months, 11 B8 users have watched and ranked a list of 30 films, all surrounding the theme of organized crime. And, given that this is a genre that, let's be honest, results in some extraordinarily long films at times, that was quite an undertaking!

Organized crime has always been one of my favorite genres of film. From the first appearance of gangster films in the 30s, to the surge of mafia and Yakuza stories in the 70s, to the pulpy and violent local-level gangs portrayed in the 90s-00s. Organized crime films portray a unique depiction of society, one where the rules of life are all different; where reality itself is warped by the organization you're within. Sometimes it can feel like a found family; sometimes it can be a terrifying death trap with no way out. We've got everything from goofy thrill rides to generation-defining epics, all with a single defining theme: don't fuck with the gangs.

The List:
The Public Enemy
Little Caesar
Scarface (1932)
White Heat
The Italian Job
The Godfather
Battles Without Honor and Humanity
The Godfather Pt. II
Scarface (1983)
Once Upon a Time in America
The Untouchables
Miller's Crossing
Goodfellas
Reservoir Dogs
Carlito's Way
Pulp Fiction
Casino
L.A. Confidential
Donnie Brasco
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Snatch
Gangster No. 1
Training Day
Gangs of New York
City of God
The Departed
Lucky Number Slevin
American Gangster
Sicario
The Irishman

The Participants:
BetrayedTangy
Inviso
Johnbobb
Mythiot
Pokewars
PrinceKaro
SSBM_Guy
Seginustemple
Snake5555555555
plasmabeam
rockus

Hint for #30: One of only two films on this list to not land in anyone's top 15.

The total scores for each movie
36
62
81
92
108
127
129
130
136
147
150
151
162
168
172
177
182
188
194
205
206
211
216
224
227
236
240
243
246
269

Fun thing: Once Upon a Time in America is on Disney+ where I live, due to Disney holding a 20% stake on Regency Enterprises.

Tag

Tag.

VEGAS IS BACK BABY!!!

Here's how it works. Simply guess which movie will drop next. If you're right, you'll receive payment based on the current odds board below. Keep winning, and you may end up rich enough to retire early like Tom Nook (our ABCs of Death champ) and Inviso (our 2010s Horror champ).

***ANYONE CAN PARTICIPATE, whether you submitted a ranking or not***

Vegas Odds on #30:

+500 Little Caesar (1931)
+500 Gangster No. 1 (2000)
+700 The Italian Job (1969)
+700 Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
+900 The Public Enemy (1931)
+900 Scarface (1932)
+250 Any Other Movie [+2000 if you guess correctly]

Current bets:
Tangy - Public Enemy
SSBM - Italian Job
Snake - Lucky Number Slevin
Inviso - Lucky Number Slevin
Seginus - Gangster No 1

Crazy that #6-12 are all within 24 points of each other.

Also, one movie barely avoided the Bottom 10 by one point.

I love stats.

I'll guess Gangster no 1.

I guess White Heat

plasmabeam posted...

***ANYONE CAN PARTICIPATE***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHwpw4jscQ8

30. Little Caesar (1931)
Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Runtime: 1h 19m
Score: 269

ssbm: 17
Snake: 20
Mythiot: 20
John: 22
plasma: 22
rockus: 23
Vis: 28
Karo: 28
seginus: 29
Tangy: 30
Poke: 30

ssbm
Rating: C

This movie is pretty much the baseline gangster movie, in my opinion. Doesn't do anything spectacular, but doesn't mess up anywhere. It's kinda like the fodder line for this ranking: anything below Little Caesar, I have at least one major problem with. Rico's a fun character to watch as he rises from the depths to the top. You can really tell how much he adores fame and wealth and power. I especially liked the scene where he poses in front of the cameras at the feast and quite a few people are like "oooh, suboptimal move." The ending's pretty good too, where Rico literally gets baited in the news and traced down his number (which I'm pretty surprised they had back in the 1930s).

The friendship between Rico and Joe is pretty interesting. I have no idea why they are friends, but the movie establishes pretty well that Rico only sticks his head out for Joe. It climaxes where Rico really needs to kill Joe, but he just can't. Both Joe and another character named Tony are pretty interesting characters. They're both gangsters that attempt to get out of the business. They both have another character who frequently pushes them to get out of the business.

My only real issue with the movie is that Rico's rise seems really quick. He takes over Sam's position of running the gang because...he physically did the work. Despite the fact that he botched The Bronze Peacock robbing by shooting McClure. I think a few more scenes for Rico's origins as a gangster would go a long way.

Snake
Its iconic opening scene sets the tone. This film hooked me much more immediately than Public Enemy did, with Robinson's performance being one of the best on the list. Little Caesar has a ur-example of the gangster's rise to power, and this example is rarely ever challenged from scene one, giving us one of the greatest gangsters ever put to screen.

John
Probably the best of the big three original crime films. The straight man Joe and criminal in-over-his-head Rico kinda set the stage that made things like Donnie Brasco able to exist so successfully years later. It's a little simple, and the characters aren't exactly deeply rounded, but its excellently shot and the relationship between Joe and Rico, as well as Rico's performance in general, really kinda sells it all.

plasma
Better than Dominos and Papa Johns, but this one still tasted flat to me. From the opening scene, I knew exactly what I was getting: a paint-by-numbers tragedy about an egomaniacal mobsters rise to power and inevitable fall. Im sure this movie was revolutionary for its time, but it never surprised me aside from one impactful moment toward the end (which Ill get to in a moment).

Plot-wise, Little Caesar is a mixed bag. At times I was bored, at times I was amused, at times I was lost. The main problem is that events seem to happen without proper setup. I dont recall Rico having any clever, detailed scheme for rising to powerit simply happens. After he shows up in Chicago, he joins the local mob, kills the crime commissioner, intimidates some high-ranking people, and thenboom!he controls Chicagos Northside. Now maybe I wasnt watching closely enough, but it felt like Ricos entire rise to glory benefitted from plot convenience, lucky timing, and a few ballsy moves. Never felt like a true struggle.

I also didnt like the supporting cast. The performances themselves are fine, but this movie is stuffed to the gills with forgettable characters. We meet one scumbag after another, and none stand out. While The Public Enemy knocked it out of the park when it came to characterizing its lesser characters, Little Caesar lost me the moment it hastily and underwhelmingly introduced the members of Ricos new gang early on. Things didnt get any better when the various crime bosses were introduced, and throughout the movie, I kept wondering, Who are these clowns? Why should I care?

Thankfully, Rico is a standout protagonist. Edward G. Robinson is fantastic here, and every time hes on screen, he gives the film a much-needed pulse. His swagger, his delivery, his various quirkshe owns this movie and actually salvages it. Even though I failed to enjoy the plot, I became invested in Ricos personal journey, which culminates in a surprisingly powerful scene in which he spares his old partners life and pays a steep price for it (This is what I get for liking a guy too much.). Seeing a brute like Rico show loyalty and heart won me over in the end. C-

rockus
Not my favorite 1930s gangster picture but Edward G. Robinson undeniable kills it here, and its difficult not to respect the movie for launching the trend of gangster movies of the 1930s and 40s. Its easy to see how it catapulted Robinson into stardom and why studios wanted him to return for similar crime roles later on in his career.

Vis
Going into this ranking, the only thing I really knew about this movie was Is this the end of Rico? as an iconic movie line. And after watching the film, theres a reason why that line is the only thing I knew. Organized crime movies, by virtue of their subject matter, have an inherent intrigue about them, so the differences really come down to a combination of the overarching story, and the acting therein. In the case of this film, I just hated the acting. Everyone in the cast felt like one-note caricatures, and there was so little emotion being shown that I felt almost no reason to care about anyone. Rico, as the main character, had the flattest, most boring delivery of lines I could possibly imagine, and his cop antagonist was somehow even worse. It just made the plot feel duller by association.

Karo
The rise and fall of arrogant mobster in a storyline that regrettably has little to do with pizza.
The movie is a dull and generic affair featuring many caricatures but few actual characters, with a story that is poorly realized and poorly directed, relying heavily on the performance of Caesars actor to have any impact whatsoever. Of particular note is a part where Caesar has to whack a snitch in his crew and the result is a rushed scene with no dramatic tension that is over so fast you can barely tell which character it is he killed. The film is so dull that it is hard to maintain any interest of any kind across even this very short runtime.

seginus
Eddie Robinson plays the archetypal "nyeah, see?" mobster with a delivery so cheesy they named a pizza chain after him. He probably deserves some credit for helping kickstart the 'angry short' trope, which becomes a staple character build in the genre. He puts in a memorable performance, unfortunately, the rest of the movie has less personality and in hindsight, Caesar's rise/fall seems uneventful next to the more elaborate 'gangster Icarus' stories on the list.

Tangy
This was a slog if Ive ever seen one. The only redeeming part of this flick was Edward Robinson as the titular character. Going in I had no idea that this was the guy that got parodied constantly in pop culture. So it was a neat surprise at least. That said, his whole schtick started getting old quickly and with nothing else to prop up the movie it just ended up falling flat for me.

Poke
Something had to go in this slot, even though I didn't hate any film on this list. A testament to the quality of films that made it and the genre is a great one. But I just had the other films higher. Is it a bias against older films? Well...stay tuned (or not, if other ones drop first).

Outlier Ranking

ssbm: 13
Snake: 10
Mythiot: 10
John: 8
plasma: 8
rockus: 7
Vis: 2
Karo: 2
seginus: 1
Tangy: 0
Poke: 0

Hint for #29: This film has 3 or more words in the title

(do you guys want hints? old school rankings used hints but I also don't want to step on the toes of Vegas)

Mine:
The standout reason to watch this film is for Edward Robinson's performance, his rough sneering face and affectation perfectly embodying the cinematic prohibition gangster. Pretty standard rise and fall story, with Rico's uneasy friendship with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s guilt-stricken Joe, who's trying to go straight as a dancer providing a solid emotional center.

Tag.

Sad that I missed this! Little Caesar wouldn't have been my number 30 as there were two other movies already below it when I quit, but it wasn't a fun watch. I struggle a lot with older movies, which probably says more about me than them. But this felt like something that should be playing in the background of another, better movie to show how someone's old grandpa is out of touch with the times.

Anyone else get Chief Wiggum stuck in their head whenever Robinson spoke?

Also, dang. I knew the old films would probably struggle, but I didn't think one of them would get last. As for hints, I like them. They add some fun trivia and I think they make the betting more interesting.

man I really did not expect this to be the lowest ranked of the 30s films by any stretch

Hints might make Vegas a little too easy.

I'm fine with hints! I'll guess The Public Enemy next.

I'm not too surprised by Little Caesar being out first. It's definitely pretty unmemorable. But I do appreciate its brevity and its close-knit story. I'm pretty bad at determining what is good acting vs. OK acting vs. bad acting, but Rico's actor seem pretty good. And yeah, I definitely got Wiggum vibes from Rico. I think Wiggum's voice actor purposefully copied Rico's voice.

Oh I'll guess Gangster No 1 again for #29

Paul McGuigan and his numbered titles

Little Caesar is definitely the most forgettable movie on the list

Oh shoot. When in doubt, just guess the one you have ranked lol.

I'll Vegas predict Gangster No. 1.

The House wins! Little Caesar had the lowest odds, yet nobody bet it. Vegas was practically handing you guys money!

Vegas Odds on #29:

+500 Gangster No. 1 (2000)
+600 The Italian Job (1969)
+600 Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
+900 The Public Enemy (1931)
+1000 Lucky Number Slevin
+250 Any Other Movie [+2000 if you guess correctly]

Seginustemple posted...

Anyone else get Chief Wiggum stuck in their head whenever Robinson spoke?

https://youtu.be/TMRmuyy9f_w

WAH!

I'll stick with Public Enemy I don't see it getting much further than Caesar

I'll guess Gangster no 1 again.

The Italian Job

Any movie ranking below Lucky Number Slevin is a crime.

Assumed Little Caesar would go quickly since as a champion of the 30s and 40s films even I had it kind of low.

Johnbobb posted...

ssbm
This movie is pretty much the baseline gangster movie, in my opinion. Doesn't do anything spectacular, but doesn't mess up anywhere. It's kinda like the fodder line for this ranking: anything below Little Caesar, I have at least one major problem with.

This was EXACTLY how I approached my rankings. If I ranked a movie lower than Little Caesar, I disliked the movie. Anything above LC, I liked.

It was also my logic for favoring LC as #30 in the Vegas odds. I figured that no one would love it enough to offset the inevitable low scores.

seginus
Caesar's rise/fall seems uneventful next to the more elaborate 'gangster Icarus' stories on the list.

Love this term. Let's keep it.

very slight change to the totals, but not enough to significantly change anything

36
62
81
92
108
127
129
130
136
147
150
151
158
162
172
182
187
188
194
205
206
211
216
224
227
236
240
243
246
269

Seginustemple posted...

Anyone else get Chief Wiggum stuck in their head whenever Robinson spoke?

https://youtu.be/Zf9EQyhLykY?t=212

Ah, I never would have understood the reference as a kid!

29. Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)
Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku
Runtime: 1h 39m
Score: 246

rockus: 5
Snake: 15
John: 22
ssbm: 22
seginus: 25
plasma: 26
Tangy: 26
Mythiot: 26
Poke: 27
Vis: 28
Karo: 28

rockus
Ruthless and unforgiving exploration of the yakuza crime families. Shares similar themes with The Irishman in the way that it presents just how ungrateful and exploitative the heads of these underworld crime organizations are for the tireless years of loyalty. Feels almost claustrophobic in the way its always throwing the camera in the thick of it, with faces and its violence up close, face-to-face with the viewer.

Snake
Occasionally lacking coherence but making up for it in raw brutality, Battles Without Honor is an unflinching portrayal of the Yakuza, uncompromisingly bloody, sweaty, and claustrophobic, taking the best elements of violent thrillers and American gangster influence for any experience thats at points hard to watch but always gripping regardless.

John
I've been trying to come up with something intelligent to say about the Yakuza Papers for weeks now and all I can think of when I think of this movie is the murder song. If nothing else can be taken from this film, it's that damn song.

ssbm
Rating: C-

I'm so glad for Wikipedia. My first time watching this movie, I was completely confused. I couldn't keep track of all the deaths and of all the different factions. The pacing in this movie is really fast too. There's really no filler in this movie. I watched it again after watching all 30 movies with Wikipedia by my side and it made it so much easier to understand. Honestly, it's not too hard to follow once you get a grasp of all the names. The main thing that I think really needs to be shown more is the fact that most of the people in this movie - Hirono, Sakai, Kanbara, Shinkai, Makihara, and Yano - are all war buddies that became part of the yakuza. Most of these characters end up playing major roles in the movie, especially the first four. It's really easy to miss that they all know each other and that Sakai in particular orders most of their killings.

The basic plot of the movie is good. Like I said, this group of war buddies who end up growing distant and killing each other as a result of their time in the yakuza - even the same yakuza clan - is good. I just wished it had more time to breathe. I don't often want movies to be longer, but this movie could have really benefitted from it. The characters are good, but mostly done out of relationships. I'm a little surprised how much of a pushover Yamamori is. It feels like the other characters only respect him purely because he's the boss, which I guess is the point of his character. Hirono's a good main character and I don't ever feels like he's a terrible person. I like both times where he's with Sakai and he reaches into his coat, only to pull out something mundane. But he stands his ground and instinctively knows that Yamamori is bad news, despite never learning that he sells the philopon.

Of course, I need to mention the signature horns that play each time someone dies. They're great and it was the main thing that got my attention the first time I watched the movie. All I could tell you was that a lot of people died. Apparently, it's a meme that's used in Japanese commercials and I can totally see why.

seginus
Visceral, turbulent, difficult to keep track of, a messy ensemble of freeze-frame kills and maims. There's a lot of handheld camerawork that gives it a raw, chaotic feel. I read that Tarantino was influenced by this one, and I think that's evident in its style. The only problem is that I found it so confusing that a few weeks later I had forgotten how the plot goes and who most of the characters are. Gave it a second watch and while I continued to enjoy it more on an aesthetic level I still found the story too all over the place to really grab onto. It has quite a mood though. That finger scene is hilarious.

plasma
So I watched the first thirty minutes of this one, admitted to myself that I had no clue what was going on, and then decided to start the movie over from the beginning. That turned out to be a good decision.

BWHAH (that acronym looks like a line of Bowsers dialogue btw) does an awful job of easing the viewer in. It unloads a plethora of characters, slaps hasty name cards on each, promises that everybody will become a future criminal underboss, and expects you to recognize whos who once the story gets rolling. I couldnt follow any of it until I restarted the movie and realized this is actually a cool historical crime drama about a charismatic Japanese soldier trying to find his place in a post-WWII yakuza world.

But as the story trucked along and more characters, alliances, and schemes were introduced, I once again found myself lost. Thats what ultimately sank this one for me. BWHAH does many things wellmemorable images, realistic consequences, and a strong core journey that follows a mans growth from subservience to independencebut keeping track of everything was more work than it was worth. D

Tangy
I wanted to like this one more, but it was admittedly a very tough movie to follow. This film thrives on the politics of the Yakuza, but I absolutely stumbled over the cultural barrier while trying to watch it. That by no means makes it a bad movie, but this list is full of fantastic movies and if I feel like I need a rewatch to understand what happened thats kind of a problem. There are some things I really enjoyed though. The soundtrack was killer and I immediately hear it everytime I think of this movie. By far the best part though was the Yamamoris husband/wife dynamic. It was pretty great seeing her keep a cooler head throughout while having better ideas than her helpless

Mythiot
There are a lot of individual moments I like, particularly in the first half. The "out with the old, in with the new" symbolism of the main character killing the sword-wielding Yakuza with his gun, the blood oath and faked suicide in the prison, the finger-cutting gone wrong, and the overall chaos and haphazardness of the film's style fits the setting of postwar and post-bomb Hiroshima. Overall, I thought it was a bit too messy and the story and characters get lost amid scenes of one side of the gang war killing a member of the other and back and forth. I do have to respect its gritty impactful depiction of the Yakuza.

Poke
A cool entry in the Yakuza side of gang-related films. The jarring chord that plays when anyone is killed will last with me.

Vis
I really couldnt enjoy this film. Ive been willing to give foreign films a shot in the past, and movies like Zucchini, Metropolis, and a large chunk of the Kung Fu list were all enjoyable to me. But with this, I couldnt get into it. The opening sequence is just an assault on my senses, with loud noises and spinning, shaky camera movements, and its during this scene that the movie briefly gives us freeze frames on the various major characters were supposed to care about over the course of the film. I never really GOT that opening scene, so the rest of the film felt like a jumbled mess to me.

Now, obviously, Hirono was meant to be the main character. He gets focused on early, and then hes the one who goes to prison, which is how he ends up buddied with a member of the Doi family and gets an in with the Yakuza life. I get that, and when the film focuses on Hirono, the plot at least makes SENSE. But at a certain point, he gets contracted to kill someone who I THOUGHT was meant to be part of the Kaito family, only for him to be part of the Doi family. And then hes out of the movies for the next, like, thirty minutes. Then all of these political machinations go on, and all the side characters kill each other off in a struggle for power, and I have no idea who most of them are, or why Im supposed to care. The only ones I recognized were Wakasugi from the prison (and hes one of the earliest deaths of the named cast), and Sakai (not because of his personality, but because he always wore sunglasses).

I feel like this movie was told in a very realistic fashion, and it was treated like a true story. In true stories, you dont always have main characters, and the plot sometimes goes in random directions. Sakai getting murdered by random hitmen at the end of the film felt realistic, but unsatisfying from a narrative perspective. And that was the whole movie for mejust a bunch of actions taking place that didnt feel like they were really driving a central plotline, and thus it wasnt enjoyable for me as a MOVIE.

Karo
The story of the postwar japanese underworld, featuring a lot of punching and kicking (and some occasional crying).
The somewhat hard to follow plot navigates the convoluted web of yakuza politics of honor and death (mostly the latter). Every so often someone is unceremoniously shot dead to a repetitive musical fanfare, these may or may not have been important people in the narrative but given how we're supposed to remember the names of the twenty or so people who were all dumped upon us within the first five minutes of the film, the hell if I know.
I was never given any reason to care about or understand any of these characters, to me they are all just sacks of meat who arbitrarily betray and massacre each other and I don't really give a damn.

Outlier Ranking

rockus: 31
Snake: 24
ssbm: 20
John: 15
Mythiot: 13
plasma: 11
seginus: 5
Vis: 3
Karo: 3
Tangy: 3
Poke: 2

Lowest outlier is neck and neck and neck and neck, but rockus easily jumps to first with a top 5er dropping already.

Staying with Public Enemy

Also whoever correctly guesses Casino should totally win a Jackpot.

I totally get all the criticism and still thought this film would've been ranked higher.

BetrayedTangy posted...

Staying with Public Enemy

Also whoever correctly guesses Casino should totally win a Jackpot.

guess it every time and you'll eventually be right!

Shame. Incredible film.

Sticking with Gangster No. 1.

I knew that every complaint about the movie would involve "there were too many characters and gang names." Would have been top 10 in mine, one of the least romantic gangster movies ever made. Glad I convinced Jon to add it

Yeah, this doesn't surprise me either. It's a really hard movie to follow. I think on my second watch-through, that first scene with all the names doesn't even matter. Like I mentioned in the write-up, the core players are really the war buddies (none of which get name cards), Hirono's prison buddy, and the head yakuza that they all pledge allegiance to. I'm really not sure why they added all those name cards in the beginning.

The Public Enemy once again.

House wins again! So far, Vegas has been almost spot-on with the odds. Let's see if anyone can make money this time.

Vegas Odds on #28:

+500 Gangster No. 1 (2000)
+600 The Italian Job (1969)
+700 The Public Enemy (1931)
+1000 Scarface (1983)
+1000 Lucky Number Slevin
+250 Any Other Movie [+2000 if you guess correctly]

BetrayedTangy posted...

Also whoever correctly guesses Casino should totally win a Jackpot.

If you think Casino is finishing anything shy of #1, you're in trouble, my friend. Deep trouble. I'm sending Joe Pesci after you.

Also, relieved to see I wasn't the only one who struggled to follow BWHAH.

Johnbobb posted...

rockus
Ruthless and unforgiving exploration of the yakuza crime families. Shares similar themes with The Irishman in the way that it presents just how ungrateful and exploitative the heads of these underworld crime organizations are for the tireless years of loyalty. Feels almost claustrophobic in the way its always throwing the camera in the thick of it, with faces and its violence up close, face-to-face with the viewer.

Great catch with this. I forgot about BWHAH after a while and never tried to connect it to any of the modern movies on the list, but this is dead on.

Accidentally posted Vis and Karo's Little Caesar scores, it should've been

Karo: 26
Vis: 30

Outlier Ranking

rockus: 31
Snake: 24
ssbm: 20
John: 15
Mythiot: 13
plasma: 11
seginus: 5
Karo: 5
Vis: 3
Tangy: 3
Poke: 2

28. The Italian Job (1969)
Directed by: Peter Collinson
Runtime: 1h 39m
Score: 243

Poke: 10
Snake: 14
Tangy: 18
Vis: 19
John: 24
Mythiot: 24
rockus: 24
seginus: 24
plasma: 28
Karo: 29
ssbm: 29

Poke
British, car chases, Michael Caine. It's tailor-made for me. It's witty, it's got that 60's British sexiness. It's got a literal cliffhanger!

Snake
Funny and irreverent, The Italian Jobs gorgeous color palette and sly, witty humor supports quick, pulse-pounding action with easy to recognize iconography thats just a pure joy to watch. Really amazing ending too - proving crime can be as funny as it can be thrilling or violent.

Tangy
Honestly the only thing that matters in this movie is the last third. Yeah Michael Caines great and all, but the true star here is the mini coops. Seeing these goofy little cars escape the police by outsmarting them instead of outrunning them was a rare treat that you usually dont get in action movies. Pretty impressive that they managed to do something like this back in 69 no less. Also that ending though, seems awfully familiar to a certain Guy Ritchie movie hmmmm.

Vis
It is very interesting (and fun) watching these older films in order, because Ive seen a lot of organized crime movies, and you get to really experience the genesis of a lot of the tropes that exist far beyond their originators. Now, going into this, I was a bit worried that this would be tainted in some way by me having seen the 2003 remake first, but I still found it comfortably enjoyable. Theres something fascinating about watching a group of intelligent people (or one intelligent person) plot out a complete heist from start to finish, and then executing it to perfection. Even with the mafia trying to push their scare tactics on Michael Caine, he boldly executed his plan all the same, not giving a fuck about his own safety.

The one criticism I have about the film is how it also feels TOO perfect. Like, it starts with a murder, but then the victim hands over information vital to executing a planned heist to Michael Caine, and from that point on, there are very few hiccups. Yes, I mentioned the mob stepping in to destroy a trio of back-up cars and put some fear in the gang, but other than that, nothing else really hinders them. If anything, the mobs involvement only destroyed cars that were already a back-up plan for if things went wrong. But then nothing went wrong. I think the professor got arrested for groping a woman, but that plot thread never got picked up again. So yeah, there was a distinct lack of stakes, since everything worked perfectly. There was no improvisation, and no accounting for unforeseen issues. Up until the ending, it was the perfect crime. Its still cool, but its the same reason why I prefer Natalie Anderson to Kim Spradlin as a Survivor winner: its more interesting when the winner has to account for mistakes, rather than playing a perfect and dominant game.

John
I liked the Italian Job. I don't think I should've put The Italian Job on this list, and had I seen it beforehand, I probably wouldn't have. The idea of a comedy heist film about conmen working for the British mob trying to rob the Italian government under threat of the mafia sounded like a great inclusion on paper, but I was under the misconception that both the British mob and the Italian mafia had a much more significant role in this film. Did it even ever say WHY the Italian mafia were after them? I mean, they weren't robbing the mafia, just the goverment in a heist that by all means needn't have involved the mafia. I'm sure there is good reason the mafia would've had issues with some British gangsters coming to their country to steal from their goverment, but really I found myself wishing there was more focus on the clash between the two countries' criminal organizations.
Is that to say this is a bad movie? Absolutely not! The opening scene is one of the best of any film on this list, the humor almost always hits, and Michael Caine is consistently great. But on what is, in my opinion, a list of some incredible films, The Italian Job can't quite hold up to them.

Mythiot
It's at its best when it goes for full-on silliness instead of James Bond with slightly more jokes, as such the film can drag quite a bit in the second act, but the grand finale is so much fun, leading up to what might be one of the funniest endings I've ever seen in film.
I wouldn't worry too much about them, they are the "SELF-PRESERVATION SO SY IT TEE!" after all.

rockus
Clever and mostly pretty fun heist movie with a young and rather charming Michael Caine at the helm of its ensemble. Some of the lengthy extended car chase sequence gets a little silly but there are few surface level aspects of the movies that are as purely entertaining as a cool practical car chase. A memorable finale helps cap off a rather enjoyable movie overall.

seginus
Vintage Michael Caine is a treat and now I see why he was the pick for Austin Powers' dad, as this character is every bit the swingin' hip Bond type those movies were spoofing. And after years of seeing him in sad, serious Nolan roles it's fun to go back to him turning up the charm for a lighthearted caper. But even Caine is second billing to the famous car chase of this movie. The car chase is absolutely bonkers and makes the Mini Cooper look like the coolest piece of British engineering since the Spitfire. It's a great payoff, and I love that it goes on for so long without cutting inside the cockpits for banter or exposition, it's just pure stunt driving spectacle.

There are some weaknesses though. Wafer-thin secondary characters, plot threads that lead nowhere (where's the mafia at the end?), the cliffhanger ending feels like a cop-out. And I know the venerable Quincy Jones did the soundtrack, but damn if "this is the self-preservation society" x50 wasn't a grating anthem. It's like if "All-Star" by Smashmouth wasn't catchy. Sorry Quincy!

plasma
Im not letting director Peter Collinson anywhere near my caror any car, for that matter. Yes, Im aware hes been dead since 1980, but his sadistic car-destruction fetish has likely tethered his spirit to the engines of every Mini Cooper, Jaguar, and Aston Martin out there. You can bet hes itching to launch those vehicles off the nearest cliff and into a perpetual tumble down a mountainside. This man has deep unfixable issues, and European automotive execs should have his gravesite under 24-hour surveillance. God help us all.

Anyway, The Italian Job is a heist-comedy that failed to impress mepartly because British humor isnt my jam and partly because the early scenes do a poor job at establishing tone and introducing the cast (I went into this movie completely blind).

The opening scene sets a tone that suits a Bond film, and thus I anticipated we were headed for a Bond-esque British crime drama. Not so. Instead we got a comedy.

Anyway, after the prologue, were introduced to Michael Caines character, whos exiting jail when we first meet him. Since Ive been conditioned to think of Michael Caine as Batmans butler for the past 17 years, I didnt peg him for a criminal (honestly, I thought he was some sort of undercover cop trying to manipulate prisoners like in White Heat). When I learned that Michael Caine was, in fact, a criminal with a connection to the man who died in the prologue, my mental immune system went apeshit. Meanwhile, several rapid-fire scenes depicted Caines post-prison lifestyle and introduced other characters I didnt care about.

And therein lies the movies chief problemI didnt give a damn about anyone in it.

Ill admit this movie contains fun spectacles like the preparation sequence and the escape sequence. Visually, I enjoyed these parts, and theres something undeniably iconic about the red, white, and blue Mini Coopers driving off with the gold. Ill also admit I had a few laughs and liked the ambiguous ending. But not enough to save this one from my Bottom Five. D-

Karo
A bunch of dipshits plan a gold heist in an incredibly stupid 'plot' from this 'comedy' that thinks it is 'funny' and has 'characters' that are well 'written'.
Like their whole plan is imbecilic and should not work by any stretch of the imagination, its like woo woo we're gonna cause a traffic jam and then just roll up armed with nothing but spray-paint and baseball bats and hijack the armored car because it is guarded by people more incompetent than imperial stormtroopers. Danny Ocean could have made a better plan when he was five fucking years old for christ's sake.
Also, there's that whole thing with the mafia that they just up and forget all about. Like, you begin the whole movie with a scene setting them up as these big shots who are not to be messed with, but then they just suddenly don't exist anymore? But hey, why not end the movie with a way too long car chase, some british blokes singing badly, and a tired cartoon gag scenario thats been done a million times. Blimey.
It is a comedy with no humor. It is a heist film with no intelligence. It is a crime movie with no stakes. It is a trainwreck that should be stored deep underground with nuclear waste lest it contaminate the adjacent film reels.
I'd honestly say that not only would I much rather watch The Nut Job, but that it is also probably a better movie by most measurable metrics.

ssbm
Rating: D-

I'll be blunt. There's one reason to like this movie and that's the 10 minute car chase at the end of the movie. That scene is cool to watch and probably even cooler to produce. There's really no other car chase scene like it. There's a lot of good gags in the car chase scene too. But aside from that, this movie just kinda sucks. There's a lot of casual sexism, with the worst of it being Benny Hill's professor character, who just has a fetish for big women. It's really low-hanging fruit.

It's also just pointless. I don't understand the first third of this movie. Charlie is out of jail and is trying to get Mr. Bridger to go along with his heist and, eventually, it works. Okay? Why did the first third need to go into this? I don't even know who Mr. Bridger is supposed to be. Is he a crime boss? A CEO? A politician? All three? He just seems to be "important guy" and that's it. The second third of the movie is practicing the heist and...it's not very interesting. Probably because the heist isn't very interesting! It goes very smoothly, in fact, despite an Italian mob being on full alert of their presence!

The cliffhanger ending is kinda stupid. It's the only thing that really punishes the criminals in this movie, but it seems a little forced. I also don't get why they put all 3 cars into this giant bus when they could have...driven 3 separate cars. Seems a lot smarter, considering the area is full of dangerous curves!

Boooo board 8. Booo.

Outlier Ranking

Snake: 38
rockus: 35
ssbm: 21
Poke: 20
John: 19
Mythiot: 17
Tangy: 13
Vis: 12
plasma: 11
seginus: 9
Karo: 6

Just as soon as rockus got first place, he loses it to Snake in a close battle apart from the rest of the crowd. Meanwhile, Poke jumps from last place all the way up to 4th in what is probably the biggest placement change we'll see in a single ranking all contest