Machine-Gun Kelly: Roger Corman

A few minutes into Roger Corman's Machine-Gun Kelly, a loose biopic of real-life Prohibition-era gangster George "Machine Gun" Kelly, something about the lead actor began to bother me. Something just seemed off about him. Sure, his performance as the quasi-psychotic gangster fit the low-budget tone of the film. But a little voice in the back of my head wouldn't stop nagging me about how uncanny the whole ordeal appeared. So I paused the movie and checked its credits only to discover to my complete astonishment that "Machine Gun" Kelly was being portrayed by none other than Charles "Death Wish" Bronson.  That's right, the same Charles Bronson whose intense, stoic machismo made him a superstar in such films as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).  And here he was in Machine-Gun Kelly giving such an energetic performance that I initially couldn't recognize him.  Unfortunately, Bronson's performance is the highlight of the film.  The rest of the film follows a fairly stereotypical gangster plot: after a job goes sour and one of his boys is critically injured, Kelly attempts to orchestrate one final score.  His plan is to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman and hold her for ransom.  However, the job is bungled by his underlings' ineptitude and the duplicity of former allies that he had humiliated and insulted.  There is a reoccurring motif of a feral mountain lion trapped by a gas station attendant in a tiny cage where it is poked, prodded, and provoked into a furious rage for the amusement of customers.  It doesn't take a Ph.D in film studies to realize that the mountain lion represents Kelly's barely concealed homicidal urges.  The scenes with Kelly and the mountain lion are surprisingly effective.  But almost everything else is just plain ol' by-the-books-and-budget Roger Corman. But, hey, I've never claimed that was a bad thing...well, usually...

6/10