this finely produced biopic about Meyer Lansky never feels rushed even as it moves briskly through the decades. Writer-director Eytan Rockaway is exploring how the legend surrounding someone often becomes much more memorable than the truth
not much different from the plethora of gangster movies that populated theaters in the 1990s, this drama gets by on Harvey Keitel's impressive performance, as well as on a handful of surprising story twists
no one can deny that Lansky led a fascinating life; writer-director Rockaway hits all the major bullet points in the gangster's life but ignores almost all the connective tissue that would make this outline of intriguing anecdotes really come alive
it also happens to be a pointless film only concerned with hitting every significant moment in Lansky's life without any real momentum or stirring context
in Eytan Rockaway's ambitious but uneven biopic about the notorious mobster Meyer Lansky.. Keitel infuses his performance here with more than enough lion-in-winter gravitas to dominate every moment he is on screen, and quite a few when he isn't
by Robert Kojder [Flickering Myth ]
