Reviews

The writer claims this film was based on his experience in prison but it's as clear as day that Blood in Blood Out, as entertaining as it is, is really just a cheap knock off of American Me.

If this isn't Damian Chapas way of milking the success of Blood in Blood Out nearly 20 years after the fact I don't know what is. It's predictably lame and as cliche as it gets.

I'd have to say both the novel and the documentary are very biased against NY and it's Hardcore scene for whatever reason. How can you devote as much time to scenes in Texas and the Midwest as you do NYHC when New York had the biggest baddest scene? It's also almost as if they're pretending bands like The Abused, Reagan Youth, The Mob and Heart Attack weren't around during the same time as SSD, Minor Threat etc. The Misfits also don't even get a mention in this film and thats a travesty.

The fact that its well known that Ian Mackaye hated NY probably didn't help and in the book NY Hardcore got maybe a small fraction of a chapter near the end.

Ultimately this documentary is cool for a few things but by 1986 the NY scene towered over all the others, and to this day still does.

I don't expect most films to be 100% accurate and this is an entertaining flick, but it's got a lot wrong with it.

First off, Christian Slater is fantastic, but he doesn't and can't play a convincing Sicilian New Yorker at all. Which brings me to my next point, the New York accents in this movie in particular are so bad. The Italian ones are bad also but the New York accents really take the cake. And Patrick Dempseys New England accent is a dead giveaway as well.

There's also quite a few historical inaccuracies, which is to be expected. But how they got "Faranzano" instead of "Maranzano" is the most ridiculous and the mispronounced "Masseria" is also pretty cringe worthy.

Overall, Mobsters is a good 6. The dialogue is cheesey but funny, it's shot well, the cast is very good outside the poor take on the NY dialect, and for that it's a good cult classic.