83m; U.S.
Director: Rick Carrier
Cast: Robert Gentile, Camilo Delgado and Rosita De Triano
Synopsis: Puerto Ricans in New York’s barrio. The boy is beaten by a gang and loses his job; the girl is raped by her employer and becomes a prostitute.
Category Archives: Crime-Action
Swimming With Sharks (1994)
101m; U.S.
Director: George Huang
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley and Michelle Forbes
Synopsis: A young Hollywood executive becomes the assistant to a big time movie producer who is the worst boss imaginable: abusive, abrasive and cruel. But soon things turn around when the young executive kidnaps his boss and visits all the cruelties back on him.
Taxi! (1932)
69m; U.S.
Director: Roy del Ruth
Cast: James Cagney, Loretta Young and George E. Stone
Synopsis (IMDB): Amidst a backdrop of growing violence and intimidation, independent cab drivers struggling against a consolidated juggernaut rally around hot-tempered Matt Nolan. Nolan is determined to keep competition alive on the streets, even if it means losing the woman he loves.
Take Out (2004)
87m; U.S.
Director: Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou
Cast: Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu and Wang-Thye Lee
Synopsis: An illegal Chinese immigrant falls behind on payments on an enormous smuggling debt. Ming Ding has only until the end of the day to come up with the money.
The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru) [1960]
151m; Japan
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Masayuki Mori and Kyôko Kagawa
Synopsis: A 1960 film directed by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It was the first film to be produced under Kurosawa’s own independent production company. The film stars Toshirō Mifune as a young man who gets a prominent position in a corrupt postwar Japanese company in order to expose the men responsible for his father’s death. It is Kurosawa’s unofficial Hamlet, reportedly the director’s favourite Shakespeare play. It also doubles as a critique of corporate corruption. Koichi Nishi (Toshirō Mifune) wants revenge for his father’s death. Nishi is a complex man, playing the troubled Hamletesque character, who lets his father’s past destroy his own future. Nishi is the easiest character to draw parallels with Shakespeare’s play. Nishi seeks to avenge the unnatural death of his father. Maysayuki Mori’s performance as the evil Iwabuchi resembles Claudius. The only other clearly corresponding character between Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well and Hamlet is Horatio with Nishi’s accomplice. Nevertheless, the underlying themes of circumstance, revenge, and justice, connect the film and play. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Sleep_Well
The Battle of the Rails / La bataille du rail
85m; France
Director: René Clément
Cast: Marcel Barnault, Jean Clarieux and Jean Daurand
Synopsis: A story about French railroad workers who were part of organized resistance during the German WW2 occupation
Rabia (2009)
89m; Mexico
Director: Sebastián Cordero
Synopsis: A romantic thriller about a construction worker in hiding for killing his foreman who hides in the mansion where his girlfriend works as a maid.
Contact: Esther Devos edevos@wildbunch.eu
La Raison du Plus Faible (2006)
116m; France
Director: Lucas Belvaux
Cast: Eric Caravaca, Lucas Belvaux and Claude Semal
Synopsis: Laid-off French steelworkers turn to crime. Explores frustrations of men who find themselves no longer useful members of society but takes a fatal turn into a robbery/thriller and deteriorates into pointless violence.
Contact: almost forgot to mention one film (an excellent fit!!): LA RAISON DU PLUS FAIBLE, by Lucas Belvaux. It is distributed in the US, but there’s no print for now, but there should be one for the fall. You can contact Wendy Lidell on my behalf if you don’t know her at International Film Circuit: 212.777.5690 or wlidell@infc.us. If she doesn’t have a print by then, I might be able to get one from France. – I almost forgot to mention one film (an excellent fit!!): LA RAISON DU PLUS FAIBLE, by Lucas Belvaux. It is distributed in the US, but there’s no print for now, but there should be one for the fall. You can contact Wendy Lidell on my behalf if you don’t know her at International Film Circuit: 212.777.5690 or wlidell@infc.us. If she doesn’t have a print by then, I might be able to get one from France.
Rapt (2009)
125m; France
Director: Lucas Belvaux
Cast: Yvan Attal, Anne Consigny and André Marcon
Synopsis: Stanislaff Graff, a rich industrialist and jetsetting playboy with a wife and a lover, is snatched by kidnappers who demand a fifty million euro ransom. The main question for his board is whether his life is worth more than twenty million. Based on a true story. Told entirely from the industrialist’s point of view, there’s really nothing here about work or workers, and even the question about what a life is worth is not explored much or well. While it’s barely hinted that the kidnappers may be disgruntled workers, this too is left unexplored.
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
168m; Italy
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori and Annie Girardot
Synopsis (IMDB): The widow Rosaria moves to Milano from Lucania with her 4 sons, one of whom is Rocco. The fifth son, Vincenzo, already lives in Milano. In the beginning, the family has a lot of problems, but everyone manages to find something to do. Simone is boxing, Rocco works in a dry cleaners, and Ciro studies. Simone meets Nadia, a prostitute, and they have a stormy affair. Then Rocco, after finishing his military service, begins a relationship with her. A bitter feud ensues between the two brothers, which will lead as far as murder.
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