Mob Land

When i was a little kid i used to visit a small community called Bengtsfors here in Sweden. This was where my father Thomas grew up and his parents lived here all of their lives. Bengtsfors had like 2 clothing shops, one shoe shop, a bakery, 2 different super market stores, a cinema and a few restaurants. That´s about it, apart from a gas station and a alcohol store. I remember in the 80´s i used to go to the bakery in Bengtsfors because my grandparents wanted something sweet for their coffee, so we would pick up some fresh baked sweets. One thing my grandfather also did on a weekend was gambling on horses, so while he watched horse races on his old TV me and my grandmother would enjoy the baked sweets. Life was simple in the community of Bengtsfors and even if there wasn´t a lot to do in the central part of Bengtfors you could always find stuff to do along the lake. In winter time we used to go ice skating or skiing around Bengtsfors. I remember one time when my cousing Christian ( this was sometime around 1993 i believe in Bengtsfors ) had gotten a motorcross bike. I tried driving it and almost crashed into a wall, so i can understand why they didn´t want me to drive it again. I also remember in the 90´s that the cinema in Bengtsfors at least tried to improve with more screenings of films, even though you could tell they couldn´t afford too big changes. Smaller communities such as Bengtsfors may not have much but they have everything they need. What matters is that the people living there enjoyed their community. But what if your smaller community would suffer from crimes and how would you deal with that where you don´t have a lot of back up from police? This is one of the subjects that is brought up in a crime drama thriller called Mob Land from director Nicholas Maggio. When i first saw the trailer of Mob Land i thought it looked similar to many other American crime thrillers but the cast of John Travolta, Kevin Dillon and Stephen Dorff seemed very interesting in the same film. I just had to get myself a blu ray copy and see if this film would be any good. Is it possible Mob Land is one of the better crime thrillers this year or should you pick up and watch Officer Down with Stephen Dorff instead?

Shelby Connors ( Shiloh Fernandez ) is a hard working man in need of money. When his extra shifts suddenly vanish that he though he would get, he meet criminal Trey ( Kevin Dillon ) who is well known for causing troubles. Trey suggest they rob a chosen location that should be easy while Shelby doesn´t want to get into trouble being in a serious relationship with his wife Caroline Connors ( Ashley Benson ) and their daughter Mila Connors ( Tia DiMartino ). Shelby finally accept to go along and help out but the robbery doesn´t go as planned. Innocent people are killed and even if they did get the money plus drugs, this causes some bigger issues for the both of them.

You could try find anything original about Mob Land and i promise you will not find anything that will surprise you. This is as traditional as you can expect with a pretty basic story regarding a robbery gone wrong, and there is even some car chasing scenes that we have seen a million times before. Now, what makes Mob Land a solid crime drama is actually the acting especially from 3 actors and that is Stephen Dorff, Kevin Dillon and actually John Travolta as well. I am especially suprised over Travolta this time since he had a couple of films that were not that good, but here it seems he feels inspired to act more in Mob Land and he´s actually not bad. I would also say that lead actor Shiloh Fernandez is not bad either as the criminal Shelby. Thanks to these characters in a very predictable plot, this actually helps Mob Land become more interesting. Different people with different life situations and problems is exactly what this film needed to work. If this film would have focused just being another criminal action film i think Mob Land would have easily been forgotten quickly. The dramatic tone of this film helps the story along the way and i especially enjoy seeing main character Shelby struggling, when he knows that he is in a really bad situation. Mob Land uses the small town location very well and capture the local community in a realistic way that could have taken place anywhere. I have to mention the beautiful cinematography by Nick Matthews ( who also worked on the latest Saw film called Saw X ) who clearly knew what this film needed to make a small American town be captured well on screen. Ok so we do have some problems with Mob Land, i can not deny that. The car chase scenes didn´t give this film anything interesting and i do feel that some of the shooting scenes could have been done better. Overall i do still enjoy Mob Land more than i expected since director Nicholas Maggio manage to make this film work through the dramatic performances. If you love crime thrillers you could do a lot worse than Mob Land and i may actually watch this film again soon. Mob Land may not hit any homeruns but definetely found a place for fans of this genre.

Rating: DDD