Susan Granger’s review of “DEUCES WILD” (United Artists/MGM)
Here’s a likely contender for my “Worst Pictures of the Year” list. “It’s the summer the Dodgers left Brooklyn, the summer I fell in love – and the summer the streets of Sunset Park ran red with blood” is the melodramatic opener. So it’s 1958. The narrator is Bobby (Brad Renfro) who lives with his hot-headed brother Leon (Stephen Dorff) and their alcoholic mother who repeatedly calls out their dead brother’s name and forgets to make dinner. Leon is the leader of The Deuces, an unimpressive gang of street toughs who oppose a drug-dealing gang called the Vipers, headed by sneering, psychotic Marco (Norman Reedus), who’s supplied by mobster Fritzy (Matt Dillon). They have rumbles when they’re not hanging out at the local burger joint and playing pool. And they amuse themselves by setting fire to stores and dropping cement blocks off roofs to destroy cars and maim people. But, most of all, Leon and Bobby are determined to wreak revenge against a local thug named Jimmy (Balthazar Getty) who got their brother hooked on the heroin that killed him. Written by Paul Kimatian & Christopher Gambale and directed with overkill determination by Scott Kalvert, it’s a flimsy, formulaic attempt at “West Side Story.” Not a stereotype is omitted nor a cliché left unsaid. But the most unintentionally hilarious line of dialogue occurs when Bobby’s girlfriend (Fairuza Balk), who’s Jimmy’s sister and the leader of a girl gang called the Velvets, is reassuring her addled mother (Blondie’s Deborah Harry), who sings Christmas carols all year long, saying, “Of course there’s a Santa, Mom. He just don’t come to Brooklyn no more.” Perhaps that’s why the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Deuces Wild” is an onerous, unwatchable 1. Don’t bet on this one.
