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Film

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The Gang Show

I'll Rumble 4 Ya

by Jessica Winter

May 7th, 2002 12:00 AM

Kabluey
Tracking Shots by Jim Ridley

Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
by McCann, Ruth

Diminished Capacity
Tracking Shots by Nick Pinkerton

Holding Trevor
Tracking Shots by Julia Wallace

We Are Together
Tracking Shots by Ella Taylor

Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein
by Tony Ortega

Coming and Then Licking It Up. Is This a Gay Thing?
Savage Love by Dan Savage

At Home With Competitive Swallowers Crazy Legs and Eater X
by Andy Kropa

Gene Simmons and the Whores He Admires
La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto

Columbia's Knotty Noose Problem
by Graham Rayman

The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal' (17)
Nat Hentoff

Scientology's Crushing Defeat (14)
Tony Ortega

Runnin' Scared: From Brooklyn, a Rap Campaign Against Tight Clothes (9)
Runnin' Scared: Arcynta Ali Childs

Runnin' Scared: The City Pitted Kids Against Artists in the East Village (6)
Runnin' Scared: Chloé A. Hilliard

Savage Love: My Boyfriend Almost Fathered a Lesbian Couple's Baby?!? (5)
Savage Love: Dan Savage

Felled in 1951 by the Shot Heard Round the World, rocked hither and thither by World Series agony and ecstasy (damn Yankees!), and left for dead at decade's end when California's Midas finger beckoned their Dodgers westward, Brooklynites had it rough in the post-WW II years. So rough, posits Deuces Wild (MGM, in general release), that their orphan boys lashed out in that first Dodgerless summer of '58 with every brand of violence at their disposal: physical (baby-faced toughs deprettify each other with rocks), emotional (emasculated toughs screech at deh muddahs), linguistic (swollen-tongued toughs assassinate consonants, torture vowels). Hulking homunculus Bobby (Brad Renfro—what happened?!) is the youth most at risk, his puffy face bunched in a cauliflower of constipated rage. Amid this desert of the dispossessed, big bro Leon (Stephen Dorff) tries to keep his ragtag gang in line against the suggestively monikered Marco Vendetti (Norman Reedus), who's fresh from stir and itching to powder-dust the 'hood. Controlled substances would seem to be exactly what these jumpy JDs need, but Leon thwarts Marco's community-service efforts with fists and speeches—the movie's anti-drug message glints as blindingly as the acres of theme-diner chrome. Director Scott Kalvert, apparently purging a morbid fixation on The Outsiders' rumble scene (Matt Dillon plays a supporting role), unleashes an endless chain reaction of cartilage-crunching, organ-pulping brawls. A flashback to a heroin casualty on a rain-soaked playground is a crucial visual aid, but any punch-drunk victim of Deuces Wild might prefer the needle to the damage done.

More by Jessica Winter

FEVA Dream
The East Village's Howl festival collapses amid mudslinging, debt, and broken promises

Secrets and Guys
Spring awakenings lead to immature flashbacks

Minor Threat
Does 'The Daily Show' really make college students apathetic?

Blade Runner
Frothy fight scenes and anti-military bitch slaps

Built to Spill
Chapter two in the solitary woman trilogy