Chicago Overcoat (2009)

Directed by: Brian Caunter
Run Time: 94 minutes

This is an odd entry in organized crime drama genre. On one hand, it's a movie dripping with style and a few scenes over the top violence. On the other hand, it's a meandering story that cares more about style than exposition. Let's dive into the stylish insanity that is Chicago Overcoat.

The start of the movie confused the hell out of me at first because it looks like a cut scene from Sin City. A black and white flash back of a sleazy strip club in the late eighties with a sound track that was lifted from Sin City. The focus of the scene is the Sleazy Guy. A nameless sleazy creep that hangs around strip clubs and behaves in a sleazy manner. Unknown to Sleazy Guy, Lou Marazano (Frank Vincent) has orders to kill Sleazy Guy and does so in a graphic manner.

The movie cuts to the present (or 2009 which ever works) and we get an introduction of sorts to Lou Marazano. A career mobster who is caught between two family obligations and is wanting to retire to Las Vegas. His daughter divorced a deadbeat wiseguy from an affiliated mob crew so he is helping her and her son out. Then there is his mob obligations and his growing disenchantment with what the mafia has become. An opportunity for Lou to take care of his family and retire arises when imprisoned mob boss needs to eliminate three federal witnesses. The problem is no one wants to do the job for eighty thousand dollars so Lou is given the job.

After a few days of following the witness and setting an alibi for himself Lou takes out the first witness. With the body disposed of, Lou sends flowers to his victim's wife and gets ready for the next target. In the b plot, walking hangover and stereotypical burnt out cop Ralph Maloney (Danny Goldring) is going through the motions of investigating the disappearance of the first witness. That all stops when he discovers that flowers were sent to the first witness' wife. So Ralph and his partner, soon to be killed guy, look at past case files regarding the mob killer that leaves flowers as a calling card. However someone in the police department has tampered with the files and could be a mole. There is also a pointless cameo with Stacey Keach where Ralph and Keach's character talk about the investigation and getting older.

The third act is a mixed bag of both kinds of family drama, character development that doesn't go anywhere, and film padding. It goes from a story about man with two family loyalties to a story about an aging gangster who is going on a killing spree and looking dapper while doing it. The b plot has the Ralph becomes a massive dick and wants to arrest Lou by being a massive dick. Sprinkle in some impressive and violent action scenes and that is pretty much the movie.

It's not a bad movie, it just lacks a point to the story. The focus is more on showing the glory days of the 1920's Chicago mafia when none of the characters were alive during the 1920's. It's a gangster lite film. All violence and some light drama but none of the moral or emotional baggage of other crime and gangster films. It's a great rental movie if you're struggling to find something watchable but painful if you're a fan of the genre.

MVT: Dapper silver haired terminator in a three piece suit with a tommy gun firing on modernish gangsters.

Make or Break: A tie between plot lines that go nowhere and character development being used a run time padding. Both broke me out of the film a lot.

Score: 5.5 out of 10