You might see them in the local bar or deli or pub, and say to yourself: “Gosh, I wonder if that Russian guy over there is a gangster.” This is much less likely to happen with terrorists. They could be the bouncers at the local night club, or those mysterious import-export guys down the hall in suite 16b. In New York or Los Angeles or London or Paris, truly scary Russian gangsters could be living right down the street from you and you’d never know it. I’m not saying they’re not out there I’m just saying those other gangsters keep a very low profile.Īnother thing: for moviegoers, Russian gangsters are scarier than terrorists because they are more fully integrated into society, and therefore invisible. This is far less likely to occur with gangsters from Paraguay, Morocco or Sri Lanka. If you live in New York or London, you can easily cross paths with Russian gangsters. Russian gangsters get around a lot more than Japanese and Chinese gangsters, who tend to be homebodies. Also, there are a lot of Russian gangsters in the real world, as opposed to Namibian gangsters or Canadian gangsters. Why this focus on Russians instead of other nationalities? Well, for starters, Americans generally hate the Russian political and economic system, so Hollywood has the green light. The Guardian Film Show: Maps to the Stars, Ida, I Origins and The Equalizer - video reviews Guardian They will kill your family, they will kill your girlfriend, they will kill their own employees, they will kill high-ranking members of the New York Police Department and, if you get them mad enough, they will kill your dog. On film, Russians gangsters will stop at nothing. (Unlike, say, Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky.) The way Hollywood sees the world today, nothing could possibly be scarier than crossing swords with the Russians. In Hollywood’s view of the world, the very word is terrifying, because it evokes the KGB, Josef Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Rasputin, Vladimir Putin and Maria Sharapova – people you don’t want to screw around with.
All of these factors served to mitigate their scariness. The Irish-Americans were charming and funny, with lovely brogues. The Mexicans had a strong sense of family and community, and were flashy and humorous. The Italian-Americans would not kill little kids, toymakers or ponies, and they weren’t really all that crazy about killing women. With all of these other ethnic groups, there were humanising factors – at least on-screen. Irish-American gangsters used to be really, really scary, but not as scary as the Russians. Mexican gangsters used to be incredibly scary, but nowhere nearly as scary as the Russians. Italian-Americans gangsters used to be scary, but not as scary as the Russians. Formerly scary ethnic groups have been deposed. The premise of these movies is always the same: nothing, but nothing, could be scarier to moviegoers than Russian gangsters. With the triple threat of The November Man, The Equalizer and John Wick, Russomafiaphobic cinema is coming to the fore. All of them are very convincing, suggesting that just about anybody can pass himself off as a Russian if he works hard enough on the accent. In it, American actor Viggo Mortensen plays a Russian gangster, Frenchman Vincent Cassel plays a Russian gangster and German Armin Mueller-Stahl plays a Russian gangster.
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Photograph: Focus/Everett/Rex FeaturesĮastern Promises is, without doubt, the best movie ever made about Russian gangsters, even though none of the principals is Russian. Getting the accent right … Vincent Cassel, Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts in the 2007 gangster film Eastern Promises. Though he may have been playing someone in his 50s. The only real difference between them – aside from the doggie – is that Brosnan is now in his 60s. In each of these films, the men are haunted by the memory of a romantic relationship that went south. The release of these rambunctious shoot ’em ups followed closely upon the heels of The November Man, in which Pierce Brosnan plays a reclusive, retired assassin who gets really mad at a bunch of sadistic Russian politicians – who are, for all intents and purposes, gangsters – and decides to kill all of them. The second was John Wick, in which Keanu Reeves plays a 50-ish, reclusive, self-furloughed assassin who gets really mad at a bunch of sadistic Russian gangsters and decides to kill all of them. The first was The Equalizer, in which Denzel Washington plays a 50-ish, reclusive, self-furloughed black-ops specialist who gets really mad at a bunch of sadistic Russian gangsters and decides to kill all of them. S everal weeks ago, in a 48-hour span, I saw two movies about retired assassins who go to war with the Russian mafia.
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