6. Held Up (1999) 2m102q
Stranded in the southwestern desert, Michael Dawson (Jamie Foxx) finds himself trapped in a convenience store where a robbery is underway. The store is surrounded by gun-toting police officers.
Due to being almost entirely set in one location, Held-Up has a character-driven stage play feeling, enabling its comedic ensemble to flourish. Typically, the comedy is dominated by a lighthearted turn from Foxx, whose talents remain entertaining and watchable throughout. He is ed by celebrated character actor Barry Corbin, as an idiotic, trigger happy sheriff.
With much of the duration consisting of a police standoff, local townsfolk arrive with deckchairs, beverages and snacks to spectate. Although some may find this neo-western’s humour silly, its entertainment value makes it undeserving of a mere 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
7. Miami Vice (2006)
Detectives Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) and James Crockett (Colin Farrell) attempt to take down a drug racket.
Upon its release, Miami Vice was misunderstood for its serious tone, in comparison with the ‘80s series, and considered a weaker effort from Michael Mann. However, the film’s standing has improved over the years, with critics now recognising Mann’s desire to take the source material in a different direction. One of Mann’s talents is to create mainstream crime movies that retain an authorial style. Viewing one frame of Miami Vice assures audience that they are watching a Mann movie. It is bursting with the director’s attention to atmosphere, constructed through his penchant for chiaroscuro nighttime scenes, blue neon and modern cityscape settings.
The choice of grainy, handheld, digital cinematography lends to Miami Vice’s kinetic, realistic rawness. Meanwhile, the facial closeups anchor the audience in the characters’ emotional arcs. Furthermore, like all of Mann’s movies, the cold foreboding and violence is contrasted with an intensely romantic charm. This is brought to life in a dance scene, when Colin Farrell and Gong Li’s characters sojourn to Cuba on a speedboat. Miami Vice’s aesthetic of pink Florida sunsets and atmospheric prioritisation proved to be influential upon Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2012).
8. The Limits of Control (2009)
Isaach de Bankole stars as a laconic assassin carrying out a job in Spain.
Indie director Jim Jarmusch has stated that his intention with The Limits of Control was to shoot “an action movie with no action.” Through a travelogue format, with a psychedelic soundtrack from Boris, Jarmusch reads into the poetry of hitman movies like Le Samouraï (1967). With meditative, hypnotic photography, DP Christopher Doyle focuses on the textural evocation of lonely, atmospheric hotels. To Jarmusch, the sound of night traffic, moonlight on a bedspread and many more beautiful, symbolic details are more important than the oblique plot.
The Limits of Control respects the audience’s intelligence, by providing a narrative open to interpretation. Each of the characters postulate a different philosophy about life. Gael García Bernal’s cowboy enthuses about the properties of psychedelic drugs. Tilda Swinton’s Stetson-hatted character is a cinephile. John Hurt’s musician is interested in bohemians, whereas a yuppie billionaire, played by Bill Murray, despises them. Through these perspectives, Jarmusch demonstrates that, like the film itself, one’s interpretation of life’s meaning is subjective.
In an interview with The Wire, Jarmusch explained: “we deliberately tried to take away things that would be expected from the film. Which is the absolute opposite of the American approach: ‘okay, what demographic, what do they want, what do they expect, give it to them.’ It was like, let’s see, can we make an action film with no action in it? Can we make a narrative where the plot is just like a series of repeated variations on something? Can we have a film with characters that have no background, no past, no present, no name, we don’t know what they represent, they’re metaphorical? These are all the things that people expect, so we were trying to remove them, with the predictable results, in the United States, of not a whole lot of people being interested in the film. That’s okay, you know, we thought it was a successful experiment on our part.”
9. Dom Hemingway (2013)
Upon his release from prison, safecracker Dom Hemingway (Jude Law) travels to to receive compensation from his former boss (Demian Bichir). When his money is stolen, Dom returns to a life of crime.
Initially, Dom Hemingway begins as a cockney gangster comedy, recommendable to fans of Sexy Beast (2000) and Guy Ritchie’s oeuvre. Jude Law steals the show with his foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, larger-than-life protagonist, professing a wealth of hilarious lines. Concurrently, Richard E. Grant echoes his finest performance in Withnail and I, as the quirky, one-handed, fashion-forward Dickie Black.
The Provençal villa they party at is filmed with an attention to its natural beauty and jet-set magic. With that said, the film’s English-set second half is markedly different to the comedic first. It evolves into a relatable, tragic parental drama, as Dom strives to reconnect with his estranged daughter and become a better man.
10. The Alto Knights (2025)
A chronicle of the rivalry between mafiosos Frank Costello and Vito Genovese (both played by Robert De Niro) in 1950s New York City.
The Alto Knights has proved to be a box office disaster, losing $36 million for Warner Bros. Although it does not cover any new ground, by recycling the style of Martin Scorsese, The Alto Knights is still an enjoyable gangster movie in its own right. It was penned by Goodfellas (1990) screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. It uses the same voice over technique and narrative structure, yet looks into a previously unexplored area of mafia history: the Appalachian meeting. What is more, Pileggi weaves in the Italian American humour that made his earlier screenplays so successful.
Robert De Niro is tasked with playing two different characters and having them interact in several of the same scenes. A testament to De Niro’s talent, he crafts two distinct characters. His Vito Genovese is paranoid and hot-headed, whilst his Frank Costello is tender and rational. De Niro’s proficiency is matched by the accomplished acting of Debra Messing. Gangster movie fans are encouraged to discount The Alto Knights’ negative reputation and enjoy it for what it is: more of the same, but incredibly well executed.