InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
chrishax
So seems I ought to write my first review on IMDb for this movie's seriously overlooked cult-potential..... It's a film for 'cineastes' with more to do with subjectivity and indulgence than the mafia...Film students from the 1960s through the 1990s ought to love it - in no particular order there's hints of Godard, Rohmer, early Scorsese, da Sica, Tati, Tarantino et al. So in terms of 'subject' the film is actually ABOUT film, about subjectivity and self-indulgence, belonging to a family of cultural reflections like The King of Comedy, The Dreamers, Harold and Maude, Dog Day Afternoon, The Master or Be Kind Rewind.But is it good enough, is it entertaining enough to keep the company of the genres it pastiches? Probably not quite, but maybe it's today's society that has moved on making irony more important than hope. Or maybe it's the art film that has moved on, now that most technical innovations like jump-cutting are now back-in-the-day. Or maybe the script is a little loose, and the technical innovation a little meagre.So the film can be rated at 5/10 it's a 'wotever' experience, or else at 9/10 it's an early film by the next Tarantino, or an old-fashioned film like Truffaut that will mature with age.Remembering there are still some French women that adore Truffaut as a national treasure 50 years on, it would be lazy NOT to watch this movie, if you know something about film history.
pksky1
This is based on a true story. One might wonder how it ever found its way into a movie script, but we are lucky it did. It is a very scary story. It reminds me in many ways of Taxi Driver, about a man driven by obsession into violence. It is the same sort of setting. But the character is not repulsed by crime, he is obsessed with it and the glamor it represents in his deluded mind.He finds a woman to share and advance his fantasies. His closeness to the environment of real organized crime, including being a failed gangster himself speeds his descent into criminality. Unlike Travis in Taxi Driver whose source of mental instability is never really explained, drugs play a major role in the behavior of the Wannabe.Is all of organized crime fueled by the same delusions? Not in this movie, the Wannabe is a pest to organized crime, to be stomped out. Nobody is impressed by his quest for recognition and reputation.
Tony Heck
"Don't write the history books yet." Thomas (Piazza) has become obsessed with the trial of John Gotti and thinks it is his mission to find a way to get him off. When his plan falls through He tries to find another way to become a wise-guy. The only way he can think to do this is to begin robbing mafia hangouts. Together him and his wife Rose (Arquette) complete a string of hold-ups that finally gets him noticed. I am a huge fan of any type of mafia movie. There was a fantastic movie called Rob The Mob that came out a few years ago that dealt with this same story. Like that one this one is also very good and I really liked it. There were some differences between the two but the biggest one was that Thomas was played as someone who talks a big game, but is different when he is in action in this movie. To me that little change really added to the realism of this and added to the overall feel of the movie. The acting is really good in this, but Piazza's portrayal is really what makes the movie and I highly recommend this. Overall, a very good movie that really makes you relate to Thomas, something that is usually hard to do in a mafia movie. I give this a high B+.
Icedooitle
In an effort to draw maximum audience presence to the showing of "The Wannabe" at a film festival I attended, the advertisers posted almost no other name than Martin Scorsese in association with the film. This has been common with films of the horror genre. Consequently Wes Craven "presented" a whole lot of movies in his tenure that he never directed. When I found this was only a Scorsese production, I'll admit to being a little crestfallen. What I ended up seeing was a film that was appropriately "not Scorsese." When it comes to lords of the underworld, building themselves to monolithic heights and suffering a spectacular crescendo of hubris, Scorsese can tell that story in a 3 hour marathon that never spins its wheels. The Wannabe is an anti-epic. This is a 90 minute jaunt that takes place in the fringes of an epic, the John Gotti trials. The limbo that the mob world was in during the Gotti trial of 1992 is the setting for a protagonist whose face wouldn't even be in focus in a Scorsese flick. He is so low on the criminal totem pole that he gets himself arrested almost intentionally, just for some semblance of street- cred.The story of Thomas (Vincent Piazza) picks up just after his release, where he seems dumbfounded by the lack of respect he receives after his brief incarceration. Fewer people know his name after his release than before. He does have the swagger of the real deal, the kind that would only fool a fool. Such a fool exists in Rose (Patricia Arquette). She is fragile in sobriety, even more so emotionally. They form a relationship in the grand tradition of "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Sid and Nancy" that is both kismet and ill- advised. At a time where she desperately needs to be taken care of, Rose relishes taking care of this young nobody. Throughout their dynamic, it is easy to forgive Thomas for his obliviousness. He is too insensible to blame, and somehow too pathetic to pity. There are fewer things more difficult to watch than someone trying too hard in futility. His efforts are so romanticized that John Gotti's thugs just behold him with an air of, "What the hell do you think this is, a Scorsese movie?"Thomas's pluck always seems tied up in the fate of Gotti, a man he reveres but has never met. Once Gotti is convicted, Thomas reacts like a super-fan watching a World Series lost in game 7. Any comradery he hoped he attained during the trial is gone. How Thomas reacts to his exclusion becomes a story worthy of mob-lore. Without a dog in the race, Rose follows Thomas headlong into delusional grandeur. That this journey is doomed is obvious from its inception. The reason it has the longevity that it does is the key to the whole film. He is such a no-name he could commit almost any crime without recognition. This is pathetic for the simple reason that his motive is notoriety. The supporting cast gives this film the feeling of a big production supporting a small one. Thugs from Scorsese movies play tired roles that are more realistic than they would be in their large scale counter parts. The cheap style this story is told in compliments the personalities of its lead characters. Scorsese presenting this film is like John Gotti giving a nod to all the wannabes.
