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Movie Review: 'Lansky' Wastes a Career Performance from Harvey Keitel

Lost in a narrative device, Lansky loses sight of its subject.

By Sean PatrickPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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Lansky uses a framing device of a made up character in order to tell the supposed real life story of gangster Meyer Lansky, as portrayed by Harvey Keitel. Lansky was written and directed by Eytan Rockaway who based the film on interviews conducted by his own father, Robert Rockaway, a History professor at Tel-Aviv University who specialized in researching the history of American Organized Crime. The elder Rockaway wrote a book called ‘But He Was Good to His Mother: The Lives and Crimes of Jewish Gangsters” in which his interviews with Lansky were a key part.

In the movie Lansky however, the source of interviews that provide the framing device for the movie is a fictional character named David Stone, played by Sam Worthington. Stone, in the lore of the movie, is a troubled man with a broken home life and serious money problems. In the canon of the film, Lansky hired David personally to come to Miami and tell his story. This creates a narrative issue in that David is repeatedly used to create drama in the movie that never really occurred. Thus, a ‘based on a true story’ narrative struggles against the tide of a made up narrative device. A made up narrative device that isn't nearly as compelling as the real life story of Meyer Lansky.

It’s 1981 and the FBI still wants to bust Meyer Lansky. They believe that Lansky still has some $300 million dollars in assets that he is hiding and they want to seize that cash and have Lansky live out his days in prison. This can only happen if they can prove that Lansky still has the money. In the lore of the film, an FBI Agent, played by former JAG star David James Elliott, puts pressure on David Stone to gather information undercover to bust Lansky.

David is conflicted about the idea of spying on Lansky while Lansky is confiding in him for a book that could become a bestseller. This would be good tension for the movie except that Elliott’s performance as the made up FBI Agent isn’t very strong and the device of pushing David to become an informant is introduced far too late in the film. Before that, Elliott makes use of another invented character, played by Minka Kelly, who seduces David in order to steal his notes regarding the book and give them to the FBI. She's on the run from drug dealers and the FBI has promised her safety in exchange for spying on David.

As you can easily divine from that previous paragraph, that’s a lot of needless padding considering that this is supposed to be the story of Meyer Lansky and not the story of the invented character of David Stone. Somehow, Eytan Rockaway determined that the legendary gangster’s life didn’t have enough narrative juice to it and thus invented whole other plot to give the movie tension rather than merely telling the story of one of the men who created Murder Inc, worked alongside the most famous gangsters in the world, and was a central figure in Cuba when Castro dethroned Battista.

I’m saying that Meyer Lansky’s life probably had more than enough incidents that render the invented characters of Lansky unnecessary. I enjoyed the performance of Sam Worthington who developed a strong rapport with Harvey Keitel. In my mind, these two actors sitting and talking, interspersed with flashbacks to Lansky’s life, with the young Lansky well portrayed by John Magaro, would have been enough to base a movie around.

John Magaro as the young Meyer Lansky

As it is, too much of the narrative of Lansky is spent on the convoluted FBI plot which includes following Elliott’s character to Geneva, Switzerland and to Israel as he chases after Lansky’s supposed hidden fortune. The time away from Lansky telling his story is the downfall of Lansky. The film raises several interesting possibilities about Lansky’s life that end up unexplored due to time spent on the FBI and David Stone's personal life. One of those interesting stories was the allegation that Lansky helped Richard Nixon to get elected President in 1968 only to be betrayed by Nixon’s Justice Department which prevented him from moving to Israel to avoid the FBI.

That sounds like a really interesting story and we don’t get any of it aside from Keitel lamenting about being the only Jewish person ever denied the chance to return to Israel as a citizen. I find it incredibly hard to believe that this story wasn't cinematic enough to be told on screen. For my money, this could have been a movie itself, regardless of it being part of a Meyer Lansky biopic. Why it was unexplored here is beyond me as the invented FBI and romance plots shoehorned into Lansky amount to little more than a distraction.

One part of Lansky's fascinating life story that we get a glimpse of, but not nearly enough of, is Lansky's role in battling against Germany during World War 2. It was Lansky who got the mob involved in protecting American shores from German spies attempting to enter the United States. This was when many American ports were under the purview of organized crime. Lansky was staunchly opposed to Hitler and one of the best scenes in the movie, or at least the most cathartic, has a young Lansky busting up a meeting of American Nazis by having Mob goons beat the Nazis senseless. Even gangsters aren't all bad.

That raises yet another aspect of Lansky that needed more exploration. The film appears to see Lansky as something of an anti-hero. Lansky certainly took part in numerous crimes over the years but he was also the architect of taking organized crime into legit businesses. Yes, they were criminals but they were criminals who created Las Vegas, a thriving economic boon for an entire state.

Lansky also tried and failed to keep Cuba from falling into Communist hands. His tactics were underhanded and likely criminal, but the outcome could have been a thriving Caribbean hot spot were it not for the forces of Castro which kept the nation from becoming an economic powerhouse in favor of a hardline communist rule that lasted for decades and created a cycle of poverty that lingers to this day in Cuba.

Lansky is certainly not a hero but his story has layers and conflicts that are indelible in the story of America. Our history as a country was forged in blood and horrific compromises that allowed us to leave free and the story of Meyer Lansky is a strong reflection of the moral trade-offs that occurred as our country grew into an economic, worldwide powerhouse. Does that story really need a made up romance between a made up author and a made up woman on the run from drug dealers?

It’s a wonder to me that the life of Meyer Lansky has never received a proper film adaptation. Any number of other gangsters from Lucky Luciano to Lansky’s best friend Bugsy Siegel have received splashy biopics, often with Lansky as a featured supporting player. And yet, Lansky remains elusive on the big screen. The closest we've come to seeing Lansky on the big screen is in the guise of Hyman Roth in The Godfather. Lee Strasberg received an Academy Award for his performance and a call from the real Meyer Lansky who praised the famed acting teacher for capturing him so well in the film. No one ever confirmed that Roth was in fact Lansky, but the famed gangster certainly believed it was about him.

This movie, Lansky, promises a biopic of Meyer Lansky, the CEO of the Mob. Instead, writer-director Eytan Rockaway gets caught up in his unnecessary framing device and side characters who are far less interesting than the real man, especially as he is brilliantly, magnetically and iconically portrayed by Harvey Keitel. What a missed opportunity.

Lansky opens in limited theatrical release and for on-Demand rental on June 25th.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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