10th and WOLF movie in review

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my review and thoughts...more can be seen at www.literaryillusions.com 10th AND WOLF uses every cliché there is for a mafia movie…but as a fan of such movies I don’t really see that as a problem. 10TH AND WOLF is about a young man coming back from the military to his old neighborhood to find his friends have moved up in the underworld of the mafia. Of course the real reason he was sent back to the neighborhood was because the Feds want him to extract information about crime for them, yadda, yadda. The interesting thing about this movie is that it is based off of a true story as written by a real former undercover agent whose life was the basis for DONNIE BRASCO. The movie came out straight to DVD and fans of gangster movies should put it straight into their DVD player. The leading casts consist of James Marsden, Giovanni Ribisi, and Brian Dennehy…well okay there are plenty more but the list is a bit too long to recount and the bottom line is the principle characters were all cast perfectly. The one downfall of the film does involve the casting though. They decided to fill the screen with celebrity cameos. What is the point of casting rocker Tommy Lee as a gangster punching a guy, just for a close up to show us: “Hey look it is Tommy Lee.” and then other than that he is not in the movie and his character is no one? Then you have Val Kilmar as the hippie drunk in the bar, just there long enough to go: “Hey look it is Val Kilmar.” and then he is gone. Dennis Hopper's cameo is okay I guess, but then they also use the names of these big stars on the outside of the box which is sort of misleading. Generic mafia film and it isn’t as high caliber as THE DEPARTED, but if you like mafia movies then this is a very good movie for the genre. 10th AND WOLF is a rare case that goes to show being run-of-the-mill has entertainment value.