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How I Became a Gangster (2020) is a bruising, stylish dive into the underworld of Poland's criminal elite, trading Hollywood gloss for Warsaw grit. It's not just another rags-to-riches crime saga, it's a study in obsession, loyalty, and the raw hunger that fuels the Polish mafia's rise. The film pulses with unflinching realism, drawing you deep into a world where charm is as lethal as a bullet. The narration feels confessional, almost conspiratorial, turning the viewer into an accomplice. Director Maciej Kawulski sidesteps cliché, crafting a character-driven story that never glamorizes its violence but lingers in its aftermath. The gangland hierarchy is depicted like a chessboard soaked in vodka and blood, where one wrong move means checkmate. This is Eastern European noir at its most captivating, it's icy, intense, and undeniably magnetic. For fans of gangster cinema craving something authentic, this is a brutal breath of Slavic air.

Gangs of Wasseypur isn't just a gangster film, it's an epic blood-soaked thesis on the anatomy of power, corruption, and the coal-dusted soul of small-town India. Anurag Kashyap doesn't just channel Scorsese; he smuggles the spirit of Goodfellas across the border, marinates it in desi ghee, and lets it simmer across generations of vengeance and ambition.

This is mob cinema reimagined, it's gritty, sprawling, and unfiltered. It replaces tailored suits and jazz clubs with lungis, cycle rickshaws, and the persistent hum of political manipulation. The mobsters here aren't just thugs with guns, they're entrepreneurs of chaos, navigating a landscape where politics is just another crime syndicate in disguise.

Kashyap's genius lies in his refusal to glamorise the underworld. Instead, he turns the lens toward the absurdity of it all and how power perpetuates itself through petty feuds, shifting alliances, and men who confuse legacy with bloodlust. The film's dark humor is its sharpest weapon, cutting through the violence with moments that make you laugh, then wince at what you're laughing at.

Gangs of Wasseypur is wild, raw, and fearless, it's a symphony of anarchy that proves the mafia genre has plenty of untapped veins left in the Indian heartland.

Most of my previous reviews were from a long backlog I finally decided to make public, but this one is fresh, written the morning after stepping out of the cinema. The setting was perfect: late show, my brother beside me, hotdogs, popcorn, sweets, a classic cinema ritual. We've watched nearly every gangster film together growing up, from Goodfellas to Donnie Brasco, dissecting them on the walk home like film professors in trackies. So the hype for Alto Knights was sky-high. Two De Niros for the price of one? That alone felt like a cinematic event.

But the film... it was OK. Just OK. Not terrible by any means, there's solid craftsmanship here, and De Niro, as always, commits fully. His performance has weight, a quiet menace, but there's something missing in the chemistry. You can feel the script reaching for greatness without ever fully gripping it. From a gangster genre perspective, it leans more operatic than street-level, a little too polished where grit was needed.

What really sticks is the thought: "This role needed Joe Pesci." The character of Vito screams for his volatility, his unpredictable energy. The film feels like it's calling out to that legacy without quite earning its place alongside it. Alto Knights nods to the classics, but it doesn't bleed with the same intensity.

Still, it's always special watching a mob movie in theatres with my brother. There's an unspoken code to it, like a family tradition. Even when it doesn't hit hard, it still means something.