One of myriad mob flicks
made after The Godfather (1971)
restored the gangster genre to its place in the mainstream, Lucky Luciano is a discombobulated
affair. Buried inside the movie’s confusing sprawl is a passable character
study of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the individual credited with establishing the
Mafia’s foothold in New York City. Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté renders an
adequate portrayal, illustrating Luciano’s descent from a position of
remarkable power to life as a marked man. At his best, Volonté sketches a
cocksure criminal who deftly employed the media while all but daring
authorities and enemies to come at him. Had the makers of this multinational
coproduction limited their efforts to describing Luciano’s eventful career in
organized crime, the picture would have been more effective. As is, the movie
lacks flow thanks to a disjointed timeline, excessive focus on supporting
characters, and the failure to clearly define Luciano as an individual before
the plot kicks into gear. Throughout the first half-hour, Luciano is so
incidental to his own story that it’s difficult to track what the movie’s
about. Then, just when it seems as if the filmmakers have found their way, they
detour into a pointless informant subplot that features a typically grandiose
turn by Rod Steiger. Oh, well.
After glossing over one of Luciano’s most
important milestones, the mass murder of 40 bosses and the subsequent
consolidation of power, the picture winds through perplexing scenes about
profiteering in post-WWII Italy and vignettes of a Senate investigation. Actors
including Charles Cioffi and Vincent Gardenia come and go in meaningless roles
before the story proper gets underway. Thanks to a controversial deal with
government officials, Luciano receives extradition to his native Italy instead
of jail time for alleged crimes. While in Italy, Luciano tries operating his
criminal enterprises from afar, but investigators and mobsters close in on him.
Some want Luciano behind bars, while others want him dead. The quality of the
filmmaking is never superlative. In one bit, a tired-looking Edmund O’Brien
spews reams of dull exposition, and in another, a somewhat exciting chase scene
gets smothered beneath overly explanatory voiceover. By the time the movie
reaches its final stretch, depicting Luciano’s reaction to government pressure
and threats from adversaries, it’s difficult to care about his plight or even
to parse exactly why things are happening. So while Lucky Luciano has enough in the way of familiar faces and
production values to qualify as passable mob-movie fare, it’s a dud from a
narrative perspective.
Lucky Luciano: FUNKY
