The Economy of Crime: A Review of "Killing Them Softly."

WARNING: SPOILERS! 
If you haven't seen Killing Them Softly, I suggest you avoid the following review.

America's not a country. It's a business. Now fucking pay me.-Jackie Cogan

Based off the novel by George V. Higgins, Killing Them Softly stars Brad Pitt as Jackie Cogan, a mob hitman who is tasked with tracking down the three men that conspired to rob a mob protected poker game. Directed by Andrew Dominik(The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)), Killing Them Softly takes place in the most dismal of locations in a post-recession city.

One issue I take, not with the film, but rather with several of its reviews that have come out saying that this story is set in New Orleans. Being filmed in New Orleans, of course, there are several locations that look very familiar to a current resident, like myself. But to somebody who has never visited New Orleans before, these locations could be the slums set in any city. While some locals and reviewers may fault Dominik for not capturing the particular essence that New Orleans has to offer, I argue that Dominik kept the locations as non specific as possible.

 For example, Roger Ebert says:

"Killing Them Softly” begins with a George V. Higgins novel set in Boston in 1974 and moves its story to post-Katrina New Orleans in 2008..."

"Killing Them Softly” continues as a dismal, dreary series of cruel and painful murders, mostly by men who know one another, in a barren city where it's usually night, often rainy and is never identifiable as New Orleans — not even by the restaurants."

 Ebert's full review can be found here: http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121128/REVIEWS/121129985

Unlike Ebert, not only do I not think that Killing Them Softly takes place in New Orleans, I don't think it takes place in any specific city. The location remains undisclosed, so that the viewer could think that this story could possibly happen anywhere. But there is one factor that I don't think Ebert took into consideration in assuming that the movie takes place in New Orleans: legalized gambling. Gambling is legal in New Orleans, making mob run poker games obsolete. Even if one would argue that underground poker games still existed in New Orleans, which there is no evidence of, why would anyone run the risk of going to an underground poker game, when they could just gamble at a legal establishment? Harrah's casino in New Orleans is so large, it would take a legion of armed gunman to rob it.

Another point in the story that makes it impossible for it to take place in New Orleans, is that it seems that the entire underworld economy focuses on these card games. Even when underground gambling existed in New Orleans, under the reign of mob boss Carlos Marcello, and while illegal gambling played a very large part of his organization's income, it wasn't his organization’s  only income. His entire organization wouldn't collapse if one of his gambling houses was raided. Again, since gambling is legal in New Orleans, it would be impossible for a criminal organization to exists solely on the profits of underground card games.

The movie starts with low level thieves Frankie(Scoot McNairy) and Australian junkie Russell(the underrated Ben Mendelsohn) being hired by an equally low level underworld figure, Johnny Amato(Vince Curatola, who is a pleasure to be seen on screen again in a post-Sopranos gangster role), to rob an illegal poker game that is run by Mark Trattman(Ray Liotta). The only reason that Amato is attempting the robbery in the first place is because Trattman's game has been robbed before. Trattman was in on the robbery, and drunkenly confessed it to his underworld colleagues one night.  One offset of the card game being robbed is the complete collapse of the underworld economy. Since one of them were robbed, all of the card games in the city were shut down and nobody was making any money. While one may think that Trattman would be killed because of this, he is so liked by everyone, he gets a pass. Amato figures that if the card game is robbed again, the underworld would immediately suspect Trattman and he would be disposed of, ending the investigation there.

The robbery goes off without a hitch. Jackie Cogan is then contacted by a man just referred to as "The Driver"(Richard Jenkins),who is a spokesperson of the leaders of the underworld, to investigate who robbed the poker game. It's explained in the film that Cogan's superior, Dillon(Sam Shepard) received a life threatening stab wound, and is unable to work, so Cogan took his place. Cogan immediately suspects that Trattman is innocent, but he must be killed anyway to keep up appearances. Another problem with Ebert's review(I'm not trying to pick on him, I swear) is that Ebert can't understand why Trattman had to be killed.

Ebert says:

"Here is where the Catch-22 comes in: Now that Markie has claimed credit for knocking off his own game, another one of his games is stuck up. Does it now seem inevitable that he, too, becomes a marked man? Not to me. Who with any common sense would think he was that dumb? There's some of the Higgins brand of humor in a conversation about how badly he should be beaten up."

The reasoning why Trattman must be killed, even though he is innocent, is because everyone else in the underworld would just assume that he ripped off his own card game again. If Trattman gets another pass, then what would stop anyone from robbing mob protected card games if there are no repercussions? After being beaten up to get a confession out of him, in which he pleads his innocence, in a beautifully shot scene, Trattman is killed by Cogan in a passing car.

It is then revealed that the junkie Russell has bragged to a friend about the robbery that he and Frankie took part in. That is when Frankie, Russell, and Amato become marked men.

Cogan then asks "The Driver" to spring for a second man, Mickey(James Gandolfini), because Amato knows Cogan, and would be aware of his fate if the two would cross paths. Times and resources being tight because of the underworld recession, "The Driver" is reluctant to bring in a second man. When he does agree, he issues one ultimatum for Cogan: "Fly Coach." Another problem, although it being a very small one, with Ebert's review is his "classification" of Mickey in the underworld.

Ebert says:

"A high-level mob boss named Mickey (James Gandolfini) arrives in town, hauling his in-flight luggage through the airport like a traveling businessman."

This may seem like splitting hairs, but Mickey is not a "mob boss." The whole point of being the boss of a criminal organization is to insulate yourself from as much exposure as possible. The very notion that a mob boss would be flown in to commit a murder is ludicrous. Mickey is just another hitman, like Cogan. The two have a history of working together, and that's why Cogan wants to recruit him.

Even though Cogan had a professionally high regard for Mickey, he is not the man he used to be. Mickey is now caught in a downward spiral of alcohol and hookers. Cogan being disgusted by the man he has become, he actually sets up Mickey to be arrested at a hotel after he gets in a fight with a hooker. Mickey is on parole and is not supposed to be out of New York, so his arrest and departure would get him out of the picture.

Now that he can't count on Mickey, Cogan decides to take care of the murders himself.  Russell is arrested by police on drug possession, so he is now out of Cogan's reach. Cogan confronts Frankie in a bar, where he forces him into driving to the location where Amato is going to be that night. Frankie reluctantly agrees, knowing that if he doesn't cooperate, he will be killed. Later that night, Amato is then violently gunned down by Cogan. When Cogan and Frankie return to drop off the car they stole to kill Amato in, Cogan shoots Frankie.

The hits being complete, Cogan meets "The Driver" in a bar to collect his cash. Cogan is upset because he is only paid $10,000 a hit. "The Driver" says that is the "recession price" that his boss, Dillion, accepted from the mob bosses. Cogan then reveals that Dillion died that morning, and that now he is working for the organization , and it's going to be expensive. That is when Cogan says to "The Driver" America's not a country. It's a business. Now fucking pay me.

Gangster movies often mirror the business climate. Gangster films set during the “Roaring Twenties” portray gangsters as the ultimate capitalist, as businessmen whose illicit business is on the rise. Classic gangster films like The Public Enemy(1931), Scarface(1932), and The Roaring Twenties(1939), gangsters are flashy and flaunt their wealth to the world. The economic climate being in the gutter that it is today, Killing Them Softly takes a more cynical view of life in America. Throughout the movie, speeches by President George W. Bush and Senator Obama can be heard in the background. News broadcast about the economic crash can be heard in car radios, and a billboard advertising both Obama and McCain’s campaign is shown in the opening scene. The ending scene in the movie shows Obama’s election as President and part of his victory speech. The speeches given by these politicians, who are suggesting things will get better, are juxtaposed to the rotting infrastructure of the inner city. On the eve of Obama’s victory, Cogan can be seen walking past people setting off fireworks, celebrating his election. When Cogan walks past the celebration, he is the only character in focus, as if he is the only one that realizes that things will not get better.

The gangsters in this movie aren’t flashy. They don’t live in big houses or drive expensive cars. Most of the scenes in the film are shot in concrete wastelands or urban slums. Mirroring the economic crash of the economy of the United States, the underworld economy is also in crisis. It seems that the desperate criminal syndicate operating in this city only has one source of income left: gambling. No other crimes that generate income are shown. There is no extortion, no drug trade, no other rackets shown that support this criminal organization.

But maybe the reason no other rackets could be shown is because the film just focuses on the lower levels of the underworld. The highest ranking person in the film shown is “The Driver”, who is a spokesperson that acts as a buffer between the lower criminal element and the boss(es). “The Driver” is the most well dressed person in the film. He drives the nicest car. Could it be that the higher level gangsters are keeping more of the profits for themselves? Maybe not. “The Driver” hesitates granting any money at all to Cogan to get the job done. When Cogan asks him to pay for Mickey to come in from New York, “The Driver”  tries to assure Cogan that the boss(es) will not spend more money on another man. Trattman, though well dressed, lives in a small, run down house in the middle of an urban slum. In a flashback, he is shown living in a small trailer. Amota could represent the struggling small business owner. Suggesting that he spent some time in prison, Amota is trying to start up his criminal business again. His office is not in a bar or a club, but rather a run down, shabby looking dry cleaning shop. Not much is known about Cogan’s personal life, except that he thinks that $30,000 for three hits is well below the regular market price. Frankie and especially Russell live in poverty and squalor. In the beginning of the film, they can be seen traversing gutted neighborhoods, where most of the houses are either abandoned or demolished.

Overall, Killing Them Softly is beautiful. The eroding infrastructure that only post-Katrina New Orleans can offer sets the perfect tone for the movie. What Dominik did for the western with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, he does for the gangster movie with Killing Them Softly. He is able to make an art film without it feeling pretentious. The dialogue is darkly humorous.  The acting is fantastic all around. Seeing Gandolfini and Curatola in criminal roles again after The Sopranos is satisfying. While the soundtrack compliments the film immensely, with Johnny Cash’s The Man Comes Around playing with the introduction of Pitt’s character and Petula Clark's rendition of  Windmills of Your Mind playing when Frankie discovers that his identity as one of the robbers is known by the underworld, the film lacks in its score. After being unjustly ignored for his score in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, I was hoping that Nick Cave would do another score that was as haunting as Jesse James was. Cave not returning for Dominik’s second major feature, results in a score that is easily forgettable.

With all that being said, Killing Them Softly is my favorite film of the year, so far. Its only competition being Tarantino’s Django Unchained, which doesn’t come out until Christmas. But Dominik emerging as one of my favorite new directors in Hollywood and my unshakable bias towards gangster movies, I’m confident that 2012 will end with Killing Them Softly being at the top of my list.

Underworld Colonialism

Since the 16th Century, the various countries of Europe at one time or another have tried to colonize other parts of the world, namely Africa, Asia, and Latin America. While there are obvious examples in modern cinema that portray European colonialism (Ronald Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite)  being a “White Hunter” in Stephen Spielberg’s The Lost World(1998) and various Indian stereotypes reinforced in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom(1984), there is one genre that gets overlooked: the gangster movie.

In the period between 1881 and the eve of World War I, several expansionist European countries occupied, colonized, and annexed various territories in Africa.  Historically referred to as “The Scramble for Africa”, African natives played a secondary role to their European masters.  Six years after World War I, the United States passed the 18th Amendment, outlawing the sale and production of alcohol. Mirroring the actions of the European nations, various underworld organizations scrambled to carve up territories to plow a now highly profitable and illegal product. But instead of Africa, these gangs and organizations, mostly of European descent, would claim territories in the most populated cities in the United States. While this underworld scramble occurred in the U.S., instead of Africa, African American criminals would still play a secondary role to their European underworld masters. 

There is no shortage of gangster movies that takes place during prohibition. But, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984) is a fantastic example of how the memory of European colonial imperialism is portrayed through the gangster film.  Taking place in New York during 1928, The Cotton Club follows the career of trumpet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere), who, through a chance encounter with Bronx kingpin Dutch Schultz (James Remar), becomes a trumpet player at the infamous “playground of the mob.” The Cotton Club itself, which is owned by Irish gangster Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins), is located in Harlem, which is predominately an African American neighborhood. The fact that an Irish gangster, who is of European descent, owns a club in a predominantly African American part of New York is a direct reflection to the expansionist history of the European powers. But the Cotton Club wasn't only a hangout for just Irish gangsters, but gangsters of various European descent. German-Jewish gangster Dutch Schultz and eventually Sicilian Mafia boss Charlie “Lucky” Luciano (Joe Dallesandro) are both respected guests at the club. The only gangsters that aren't seen there are the African American gangsters, which as stated earlier, play a subservient role to their European gangster overlords. Bumpy Rhodes (Laurence Fishburne), who is based off the real life New York gangster Bumpy Johnson, is the leader of an African American gang, who isn't allowed into the Cotton Club. For the majority of the film, Bumpy and his men conduct business in exile from this oasis in the middle of Harlem. Not only are Bumpy and his men not allowed in the club, but they aren't even the masters of their own neighborhood, for they must answer to Dutch Schultz. Another element of the club that can be seen as a throwback to colonialism is that the only African Americans who are allowed into it are performers. While rich white people eat, drink, or conduct business, the African Americans in the club are only there to entertain or to serve the white guests. 

A direct illusion to the colonial powers fighting over the territory in Africa can be compared to a scene early in the film where Dutch Schultz and rival gangster Joe Flynn (John P. Ryan, playing a fictitious gangster) have been fighting over territory in Harlem. A “sit down” is called by Madden to keep the peace between the two gangsters, who represent two European powers. Madden forces the two rivals to shake hands and says: 

“There is plenty of money in Harlem for everybody. It’s hot and it’s getting hotter. 
You start this war business up there and you got a brand new enemy, me. You are here because you both agreed to this truce. And it is a truce. Now shake hands. Shake fucking hands! Now, in the next room gentleman is the best food, drink, and pussy available at any price in New York. I suggest you take a sample of these things and try to remember that is this why we work so hard, to live the way that kings and princes lives in this world, eh?” 

The meeting suggests that Madden helped carve up Harlem and is trying to keep the truce between the two gangsters, to avoid a costly gang war. The same can be said the way Africa was divided up for the European nations, to eliminate the threat of a European-wide war over the territories of Africa. But like the Berlin Conference of 1874, which failed to end the hostilities between European nations, Madden’s conference between the two gangsters ends in bloodshed after Schultz stabs his rival to death after a racist comment. The meeting, along with the grandiose speech that Madden gives, clearly shows that these gangsters think of themselves as “kings” or “princes” of New York City, rather than as criminals peddling booze. 

The notion that The Cotton Club mirrors European expansionism is only further proven by the way that the African American community sees this intrusion of white gangsters into their neighborhood. After one of her bars is shot up for refusing to pay protection money to Schultz, independent numbers operator Stephanie St. Claire(Novella Nelson) calls a war council on how to deal with the “white invaders.” Most of them agree that war is the only answer, but St. Claire decides not to take on the gangster establishment. Bumpy, also hesitant to go to war, later tells musician Sandman Williams (Gregory Hines):

“Sandman, I can kill him. But you can dance on his grave. No, listen to me Sandman. I’m not a dancer, ok? I’m a pimp, I’m a thief, I’m a gambler. That’s what I do. I’ve got no talent for dancing for where I want to get to in this world. I can’t even get my foot in the door of the Cotton Club, where my own people, black people, are the stars. Why? Because I’m black. There’s only two things in this world I have to do, Sandman. One is stay black, the other is die. The white man ain’t left me nothin out here but the underworld and that is where I dance.” 

In Bumpy’s speech, the audience can hear in his voice not only the frustration that he is discriminated against by the law because he is black, but the only haven he has left, crime; he is also discriminated against because the color of his skin. After her refusal to go to war, a montage of shootings, bombings, and African American men being beat up plays, it ending with a newspaper on screen with the headline “HARLEM RACKETS INVADED!” and “NUMBERS WAR RAGING IN HARLEM!” This war council formation and its quick defeat by Schultz can be compared to the several African revolutionary groups that were formed to resist European aggression. Because of the technology possessed by the Europeans, and the sheer force of their army, the majority of these resistance groups were quickly defeated. A parallel can be constructed between European dominance and the montage mentioned above. Because of the industrial revolution, most of the European powers had machine guns in their arsenal. In the montage, only white gangsters are shown firing “tommy guns” at African American gangsters. This suggests that like the African resistance movements, the lack of technology in arms is the main reason for their defeat. 

As with the tensions between European powers that erupted into World War I, in The Cotton Club, gang war does not happen, but the assassination of Dutch Schultz and the division of his rackets in Harlem are split by an alliance formed by Owney Madden and Charlie Luciano, who headed the newly reorganized Mafia. This assassination could be compared to the outbreak of World War I and the division of territory between the European nations after the war.  

Another gangster movie that portrays the imperialistic past of Europe is another Coppola film, The Godfather: Part II (1974). Continuing from the story of the first Godfather film, Godfather: Part II shows Michael Corleone‘s (Al Pacino) imperialistic dealings with Cuba on the verge of revolution. In a pivotal scene in the film, Michael is at a hotel in Havana with Jewish crime czar, Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) and other various leaders of the American underworld. Being Roth’s 67th birthday, a cake in the shape of Cuba is presented to him. He then starts to explain how Cuba is going to be split up between the Mafia families to avoid bloodshed. Roth cuts the cake and hands it to the Mafia boss that gets his portion of Havana. Roth explains:

“You all know Michael Corleone – and we all remember his father. At the time of my retirement, or death, I turn over all my interests in the Havana operation to his control. But, all of you will share. The National will go to the Lakeville Road boys. The Capri to the Corleone Family. The Sevilla Biltmore, also, but Eddie Levine of Newport will bring in the Pennino Brothers, Dino and Eddie, for a piece, and also to handle the actual casino operation. And we've saved a piece for some friends in Nevada, to make sure things go smooth back home. I want all of you to enjoy your cake – so, enjoy.” 

And later, Roth admits to Michael that: 

“If only I could live to see it, to be there with you. Uh, what I wouldn't give for – twenty more years. Here we are protected, free to make our profits without key follow with the goddamn Justice Department and the FBI. Ninety miles away, partnership with a friendly government ninety miles. It’s nothing. Just one small step, looking for a man that wants to be President of the United States and having the cash to make it possible. Michael, we’re bigger than U.S. Steel.”

The way Coppola portrays it, Roth is giving away an empire rather than a criminal enterprise. Since colonies were usually oceans away from their colonizer, a common European tactic to keep the colonized population settled is that you construct a new native elite class in society, and let them govern the natives. In The Godfather: Part II, there is a scene where Michael, Roth, and several other men representing legitimate U.S. businesses are at a table with the President of Cuba (Tito Alba). While his name is never spoken in the film, it is obvious that he is supposed to be Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. Much like the historical Batista, he is supported by both U.S. business interest/Government and the American Mafia. Again, both in the film and in reality, the United States and the Mafia colonized Cuba, not literally, but economically. Batista allowed the Mafia to operate casinos and houses of prostitution in return for a chunk of the profits. In the film; he is even given a golden telephone, a symbol of his submission, by one of his colonialist overlords. Batista is the American Mafia’s elite in Cuba, who rules in the interest of the colonizer rather than the colonized. 

In the scene mentioned above, Batista says to the men at the table:

“I’d like to thank this distinguished group of American Industrialists, for continuing to work with Cuba, for the greatest period of prosperity in her entire history. Mr. William Proxmiro, representing the General Fruit Company. Messrs. Corngold and Dant, of the United Telephone and Telegraph Company; Mr. Petty, regional Vice-President of the Pan American Mining Corporation; and, of course, our friend Mr. Robert Allen, of South American Sugar.  Mr. Nash of the American State Department. Mr. Michael Corleone of Nevada representing our Associates in Tourism and Leisure Activities. And my old friend and associate from Florida, Mr. Hyman Roth. ”

And when asked what he is doing to quash the Cuban rebellion that is gaining popular support, he responds with: 

“I can assure you this! We’ll tolerate no guerrillas in the casinos or swimming pools!”

It is obvious that the average Cuban citizen could care less about the swimming pools in hotels. Batista is not worried about the safety of the Cuban people in this revolution because he is looking after the interest of the colonizers, who have invested money in Cuba.


Even though the age of European colonization has long since ended, the echoes of empire are embedded in film. Francis Ford Coppola’s, The Cotton Club, portrays modern colonization, not over the third world, but rather over the underworld, where European gangsters rule over their subjects. In Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II, the Mafia practices economic colonialism, where they rule over their gambling empire through corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The Voice of Crime

"God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That’s flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character." Those are the words of Brian Cox portraying creative writing instructor Robert McKee in Spike Jones’s Adaptation (2002). Much like McKee’s opinion, voice over narration is often seen as a narrative crutch by critics and film theorist, but when used effectively, it could greatly enhance the audience‘s understanding of a film (Kozloff 7). One example of an effective voice over narration can be seen in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990). Another crime film which uses voice over narration, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000), works at times, but is not nearly as effective.


Part of why the voice over technique works so well in Goodfellas is because of the world that it takes place in. The film tells the story of Mafia associate and eventual turncoat Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), who worked for the Lucchesse Crime Family for over thirty years. This makes voice over essential for the audience, since most of them would be totally unfamiliar with the inner workings of organized crime. One fantastic example of this could be seen where Hill is explaining a common Mafia technique for extorting a businessman. Commonly referred to as a “bust out”, is where the Mafia becomes an invisible partner of a legitimate business. Though this technique is not terribly complicated, it would be difficult to convey the basic idea to the audience just through images without causing confusion. Also, since criminals usually don’t explain their crimes to their victims, explaining the workings of the “bust out” in the story between characters could be considered on the nose writing. Really, the only way to inform the audience of what is going on is through the following voice over narration:

"Now the guy’s got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill, he can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. Now the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week no matter what. Buisness is bad? Fuck you, pay me. Had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning? Fuck you, pay me. Also, Paulie could do anything, especially run up bills on the joint’s credit. And why not? Nobody’s gonna pay for it anyway. When the deliveries are made at the front door you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. You take a $200 case of booze and sell it for $100. It doesn’t matter. It’s all profit. Then finally, when there’s nothing left, when you can’t borrow another buck or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out. You light a match."

While this voice over narration is playing, a series of quick shots showing gangsters taking goods out of the backroom of a restaurant and putting it in the back of a truck. After that, with the narration still playing, a shot of the business owner being pressured to sign insurance papers is seen. Then, once the narration is over, we see both Henry and his cohort Tommy (Joe Pesci) burn down the bar, presumably to cash in on the insurance money. Though the audience may just assume that something illegal was taking place, without the voice over narration, the audience would not have a clear understanding of what is going on. Thomas Sobachack proposes in his book An Introduction to Film, “A continuous sound track in which a narrator speaks to the audience throughout the film can unify what would be otherwise fragmented and disconnected visual images (145). This scene from Goodfellas does exactly that.

Another reason that the voice over technique used in Goodfellas is effective is because the film acts as an anthropological study of the Mafia. As also explained through voice over narration in the film, because of Henry’s half Irish background, he could never be an actual “made” member of the Mafia. Though he is an active participant in crimes and an active associate of the Mafia, he will never be accepted as one of them. This gives Goodfellas a documentary-like feel, similar to someone like Jane Goodall living with apes, participating in their rituals, but never really becoming one of them. In his article A Way of Life: “Goodfellas” and “Casino”, Constantine Verevis says:

“Henry’s status as a detached observer-a narrator at once inside and outside the system of conduct that he documents-which positions him as a quasi-anthropological commentator on the mob’s codes and values…..Henry’s voice-over effectively guides the viewer through the narrative, providing an insider’s knowledge and perspective on the world of the gangster, at once shaping the film as a piece of documentary journalism and providing contextual and narrative connections so that most scenes require no beginning and no ending, but merely a few illustrative, emblematic shots."

Besides explaining the inner workings of organized crime and acting as a guide through the underworld, Henry’s voice over narration in Goodfellas also acts as a justification for both his crimes and the crimes of his associates. For example, Henry says:

"For us to live any other way was nuts. To us those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills were dead. They had no balls. I mean they were suckers. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice, believe me, they got hit so hard they never complained again."

And again, Henry justifies the role of the Mafia through saying:

"All they got from Paulie was protection from other guys looking to rip them off. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what the FBI can never understand-that what Paulie and the organization offer is protection for the kinds of guys who can’t go to the cops. They’re like the police department for wise guys."

It is through this narration and several others through the film that Henry tries to justify, unapologetically, his gangster way of life to the audience.

A more humorous trip through the criminal underworld is seen in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. Taking place in London, Snatch has a colorful cast of criminals who are all connected by a stolen diamond. The voice in the narration is that of Turkish (Jason Statham), an unlicensed boxing promoter. Though the voice over narration starts off similar to Goodfellas, with Turkish explaining the inner workings of his illegal enterprise and his status in the London underworld, there are times where his voice over narration is redundant. The narration suffers in the film because it is mostly just used to “identify characters and underline developments” (Ebert).

Though humorous, some of the most redundant narrations that Turkish presents to the audience are his brief descriptions of certain underworld figures. One example is of “Boris the Blade” (Rade Serbedzija):

"Boris the Blade, or Boris “the Bullet Dodger.” As bent as the Soviet sickle and as hard as the hammer that crosses it. Apparently, it’s just impossible to kill the bastard."

Again, while humorous, Turkish’s description of the character is not needed. Everything that he tells the audience about Boris is either already obvious, or will be found out later in the film. For example, at the first glimpse of Boris, the audience can tell that he is a tough “bastard” just by looking at the huge scar he has running on the right side of his face. Another way that the audience finds out about Boris’s reputation is by the frightened reaction of tough guy “Bullitt Tooth” Tony (Vinnie Jones) when he realizes that Boris is the man who he is looking for. Through the story, the audience also finds out he is “bent” or dishonest, by several characters calling him a “sneaky fucking Russian” or “KGB cancer.” Lastly, the audience also finds out how hard Boris is to kill after he is run over by a car, and then, after surviving that, is shot several times by an astonished “Bullet Tooth” Tony until he finally expires.

Another narration that is given to us that is redundant to the audience is how gang lord “Brick Top” (Alan Ford) likes to dispose of his victims:

"It’s rumored that Brick Top’s favorite means of dispatch involves a stun gun, a plastic bag, a roll of tape, and a pack of hungry pigs."

Again, this narration is useless to the audience because the action is happening on screen. As Turkish is narrating, a victim is actually being shocked by a stun gun, rolled up in a plastic bag, and then taped up. And while we don’t see the victim being thrown to the pigs, the last line of the scene Brick Top yells to an underling: “Feed him to the pigs, Errol.” Also, later in the film Brick Top himself explains his method of execution via swine to a few characters as a means of intimidation, again rendering the voice over narration by Turkish useless.

Aside from using useless voice over narrations to introduce characters or their methods of execution, Snatch also uses the voice over narration to sum up plot points that the audience should already understand. For example, Brick Top wants Turkish to get Mickey (Brad Pitt), a bare knuckled boxer, to take part in one of his fights. Mickey refuses because he says he has quit boxing to look after his mother. As a retaliatory response for his defiance, Brick Top tries to have Turkish beat up and kills Mickey’s mother. Turkish explains:

"Brick Top though smashing up our arcade might help me to persuade Mickey to fight. And if that wasn’t enough, he thought it would be a good idea to burn Mickey’s mum’s caravan. While she was asleep in it."

Again, this is another part of the film that requires no narration because it should be obvious to the audience what is happening. The scene right before this narration, Brick Top orders to an underling: “Punish them for me Errol.” He says that right after he gets off the phone with Turkish, who explained to Brick Top that Mickey won’t fight because of his mother. So the thugs that smash up Turkish’s arcade are obviously dispatched by Brick Top. It should be also obvious that Brick Top ordered the burning of Mickey’s mother’s caravan; because that is the reason he won’t fight.

Ways Ritchie could have improved the use of voice over narration in Snatch would have been simply to have Turkish express more of what he is thinking, or something that needed further explanation, rather than explain to the audience what they already know. If the character of Turkish acted more as our guide through the criminal underworld, like Henry did in Goodfellas, rather than just being a side character with a voice over, the device would have been far more effective. Especially since the criminal underworld of London is far more exotic than the criminal underworld of New York. Native gang lords, ex-KGB agents turned gangsters, Jamaican yardies, and Pikeys all prowl the London underworld that is portrayed in Snatch.

While Snatch isn’t “culturally and cinematically a dead end, based on a lazy retelling of Get Carter” (Smith 188), the narration in the film fails to be effective. Unlike Goodfellas, which uses the voice over narration to guide and explain foreign customs and rules of the underworld to the audience, Snatch just uses voice over narration to introduce characters and to explain plot points.


Bibliography

-Ebert, Roger. ""Snatch"" Snatch :: Rogerebert.com :: Reviews. Chigaco-Sun Times, 19 Jan. 2001. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. .

-Kozloff, Sarah. Invisible Storytellers: Voice-over Narration in American Fiction Film. Berkeley: University of California, 1988. Print.

-Smith, Jim. Gangster Films. London: Virgin, 2004. Print.

-Sobchack, Thomas, and Vivian Carol Sobchack. An Introduction to Film. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Print.

-Verevis, Constantine. "Way of Life: Goodfellas and Casino." Gangster Film Reader (2007): 209-23. Print.

The Purpose of Paranoia: The Influence of Conspiracy on American Cinema

WARNING: SPOILERS!

There are few historical events that would capture the influence of American cinema more than the Watergate scandal that plagued America during the early 70s. The revelations that were uncovered during the Watergate investigation, and the investigations that it spawned, created a public distrust in the federal government. The growing claims of conspiracy and cover up over the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy, and his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy would also lead people to think twice about taking what the government said at face value.

            

One out of the three movies in Alan J. Pakula’s “Paranoia Trilogy” (Klute, All The President’s Men and The Parallax View) The Parallax View (1974) would completely sum up the feelings of distrust and paranoia that existed during the 1970s. The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty as a news reporter whose ex-girlfriend witnesses a Bobby Kennedy-esque assassination, acts as a time capsule of the 1970s.

Right when The Parallax View was released, the point of political paranoia in the United States was at its highest. The Watergate Committee, which led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, had spawned more investigations into the federal government. The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities was formed after the Watergate Committee. The Committee to Study Governmental Operations was organized to investigate the crimes of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, such as the FBI, since their complicity in Watergate proved that they were capable of breaking charter. When disturbing information started to be uncovered when the investigation of the CIA started, the Church Committee was formed to just investigate the crimes of the CIA.  During the Church Committee various domestic crimes of the CIA were uncovered, including OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD, which proved that the CIA had influence in both domestic and foreign media. When CIA involvement in the JFK assassination was deemed a possibility, the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed. The HSCA would re-investigate the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The Kennedy assassination would once again be thrust it into the mindset of the public.

Even though The Parallax View would debut before most of these committees would be formed, it would be an eerie omen. Similar to the omens that would haunt Frank Sinatra during the early 50s and 60s. In 1954, Sinatra would star in a movie called Suddenly. He would play the leader of three gangsters that would capture the town’s sheriff (Sterling Hayden) and would hatch a plan to assassinate the President of the United States when his train stopped in town. The plan is strangely similar to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Sinatra would create a sniper’s nest on the top story of a house looking over the railroad where the President would stop. When asked why he was using a sniper rifle instead of a tommy gun by one of his cohorts, Sinatra would reply that the rifle would pack more of a punch. Of course, the film is not exactly like the Kennedy assassination, Sinatra and his men are stopped before they could assassinate the President. President Kennedy would not be so lucky. After the Kennedy assassination, Sinatra would sell all the rights he had to the film, casting it into the realm of the public domain. Sinatra would suffer another ill-fated omen with his film, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). The film again stars Sinatra as a Korean vet who eventually uncovers that he and his fellow squad members were captured and brainwashed by communist during combat. The group’s former Staff Sergeant, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), would be hypnotized to assassinate the Vice-Presidential rival of his stepfather. Again, the end turns out differently, where Shaw assassinates his MaCarthyish stepfather and his mother (Angela Lansbury), who was revealed to be working with the communist. Shaw then kills himself, realizing that he posed a continuous threat. During the Church Committee, it was revealed in OPERATION ARTICHOKE that the CIA had been trying to hypnotize assassins since the early 50s, similar to the methods used in The Manchurian Candidate. The research to make a sleeper assassin would continue through the 60s and 70s in the infamous MKULTRA programs. A popular conspiracy theory for both of the assassinations of President and Senator Kennedy is that Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan were sleeper assassins, who were triggered to kill by the CIA.

The plot of The Parallax View would also contain elements of both Kennedy assassinations. As stated earlier, reporter Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) has an ex-girlfriend who witnesses an assassination of a state senator that greatly compares to the assassination conspiracy theories of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. One assassin shoots the senator at close range, serving as a distraction, while another assassin is able to finish him off. Three years after the assassination, Frady’s ex comes to visit him, saying she is fearful for her safety. She reveals that several people who witnessed the assassination of the senator have suffered strange and unexplained deaths. This is an obviously nod to the list of people who suffered equally strange deaths that witnessed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Daley Plaza on November 22, 1963. Frady eventually uncovers that a company named Parallax has been hiring angry, anti-social outcasts (similar to Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan), who unknowingly, are going to take the fall for political assassinations. Frady goes undercover and applies to be one of these patsies and watches a film that shows a montage of pictures. Within this montage are pictures of stereotypical American images: apple pie, the American flag, and the nuclear family. But as the montage speeds up images of racial violence, graves, Nazis, and the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald are embedded into the montage.

Frady continues to stalk the man who believes will be his handler for Parallax. Believing that Parallax is not aware of his deception, Frady tries to prevent the assassination of another U.S. Senator. Not only does Frady fail, but Parallax has caught on to Frady and ends up framing him for the assassination. Frady is quickly killed by a Parallax assassin (dressed as a security guard) and the film ends with a governmental committee stating that Frady was a crazed, lone assassin, similar to the explanations given by the U.S. government over Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan.

            

The Parallax View wouldn't be the only film that uniquely captured the rampant paranoia of the 70s. Sydney Pollock’s Three Days of the Condor (1975) would also be an early post-Watergate film. Directed by Sydney Pollock and starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, and Max von Sydow, Three Days of the Condor is about bookish CIA analyst Joe Turner (Redford) who comes back from a lunch run to discover that all of his coworkers have been murdered by assassins. Turner starts to play a cat and mouse game with his CIA handlers and the mysterious operative Joubert (von Sydow), who continues to hunt him down. It is eventually uncovered that CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Leonard Atwood, ordered the massacre of Turner’s co-workers because Turner was about to uncover a secret operation that would allow the CIA to take over Middle East oilfields. The movie is filled with paranoia and intrigue, but it is the ending of the movie that really portrays the cloak and dagger nature of the CIA. Turner eventually uncovers the plot, and confronts Atwood at his house at gunpoint. Joubert disrupts them and then unexpectedly kills Atwood. Though initially Joubert had been hired by Atwood to assassinate Turner, his superiors, discovering the secret plot, hired Joubert to take out Atwood. Joubert is courteous towards Turner, and even warns him to leave the country because the CIA may still try to have him killed. Turner leaks the story to The New York Times, and the film ends with a freeze frame of Turner looking over his shoulder; making sure that nobody is following him.

            

Three Days of the Condor would be one of the first in a slew of films that portrayed the shadowy world of intrigue that CIA agents traverse. A few years after Three Days of the Condor, Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) would bring the shadowy world of assassination back to the screen. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a sound mixer for films who records the assassination of a governor. Dismissed as a Chappaquiddick-esque auto accident by the authorities, Terry holds the only piece of evidence that proves that it was an assassination plot. He is soon stalked by a mysterious government operative (John Lithgow), who is revealed to be an agent gone rouge. Lithgow’s character slightly compares to E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, the leaders of Nixon’s infamous “plumbers”, who organized the never carried out assassination of reporter Jack Anderson without the approval of the White House. 

Also, Terry having electronic evidence to prove that there was a conspiracy behind the murder is a reference to the infamous Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination.

By the end of the 20^th Century, mainstream political conspiracy thrillers were in full swing with Enemy of the State (1998) and Arlington Road (1999). Enemy of the State starts Will Smith, Gene Hackman, John Voight, Gabriel Byrne, Jason Robards, and Tom Sizemore. The film is about Robert Clayton Dean (Smith), a lawyer who is given a videotape that shows a Congressman (Robards) being murdered in broad daylight by assassins working for NSA official Thomas Reynolds (Voight). Reynolds soon find outs that Dean has the evidence and starts systematically running his life, by getting him fired from his job and freezing his assets. Dean eventually stumbles across retired NSA operative Edward Lyle (Hackman, in a role that is a direct throwback to his character in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974)), who helps Smith avoid the government agents after him. The climax of the film happens in the backroom of a restaurant owned by D.C. mob boss Joey Pintero (Sizemore), who ends up in a Mexican standoff with Reynolds and his agents. The climax is important, not just because Sizemore has the privilege of being the only actor to portray the leader of a Mafia organization in Washington D.C., but because the ending could be a reference to the relationship that existed between organized crime and the intelligence community. During the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, it was revealed that the CIA worked with New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, Tampa Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, and Chicago lieutenant Johnny Roselli in an effort to assassinate Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. (It is important to note that both Roselli and Giancana were both brutally murdered after their testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Teamsters Union Boss Jimmy Hoffa would also disappear around the same time of these murders.)

Right after Enemy of the State debuted at the box office, Arlington Road, another political thriller, was released. Instead of focusing on the government being the antagonist, Arlington Road is about widowed university professor Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges), who suspects that his new neighbors (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack) are terrorists. Professor Faraday, who specializes in American terrorism, becomes obsessed with investigating his neighbors and foiling their terrorist plot. Arlington Road would be the first in several films that depicted the paranoia of terrorism, especially after the 9/11 attacks. Civic Duty (2006) and the television show 24(2001-2010), for example, both deal with the paranoia and mass hysteria concerning terrorism in a post 9/11 world.

As the first decade of the new century came to a close, there would be several films made about CIA corruption, conspiracy, and its relationship with Islamic fundamentalism: Munich (2005), Syriana (2005), The Bourne Trilogy, Rendition (2007), Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), Body of Lies (2008) and The Ghost Writer (2010). But it would be two films (technically one is a miniseries) that focused on the early years of the CIA that would be the best. Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd (2006) and TNT’s highly fictionalized miniseries The Company(2007) are both based on the early years of the CIA and both have CIA counter-intelligence chief James Jesus Angleton as a central character in the story. It would be the haunting last words of The Good Shepherd that would sum up the attitude of the CIA since its founding: I remember a senator once asked me. When we talk about "CIA" why we never use the word "the" in front of it. And I asked him, do you put the word "the" in front of "God"?

DASVIDANIYA!: A Brief History of Russian Organized Crime

Note: This was a paper for a history class and in no way covers the entire history of Russian organized crime. For further reading, see the bibliography section at the bottom of the page.


Fate had it that when I found myself at the head of the state it was already clear that all was not well in the country. Those are the words spoken by Russian President Mikhael S. Gorbachev as he announced his resignation from the USSR. It would be the advent of the free market which would give rise to organized crime in not only Russia, but in all of the republics which formerly comprised the Soviet Union.

Of course, organized crime existed in Russia before the fall of the Soviet Union. Unlike the various organized crime groups in the United States, ethnicity did not play a major factor in membership. Serving time in Russian prisons, Stalin’s brutal gulags, replaced the binding role of ethnicity. A professional criminal class began to develop within the gulags. This criminal elite adopted certain rules, behaviors, values, and sanctions that bounded them to the “vory v zakone” or “thieves law”. While the vory were considered by their peers to be the top criminals, the true people that sat on top of the hierarchy of organized crime in Soviet Russia were either Communist Party members or state officials that abused their power and authority. These corrupt Soviet officials developed a symbiotic relationship with the criminal class. The bribes that funneled up from the criminals to officials caused the state not only to allow organized crime to exist, but encouraged and protected it because the state itself benefited from organized crime.  A clear criminal organization, composed of three levels, really only began to take shape at the end of the 1960s, during the corrupt Brezhnev era. The top level of the structure was occupied by Soviet leaders and corrupt officials. The second level was composed of normal people that worked for the state, but produced goods outside state mandated quotas and sold them on the black market for profit. The third level was made up of the professional criminals who ran various criminal enterprises. All of these levels existed before the 1960s, but it was only when gangsters became more involved in white collar crimes did they absorb into one organization.

            
During the 1970s, after the Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking, the Soviet Union temporarily loosened immigration restrictions for Jewish immigrants, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to immigrate to America. It is widely believed that the KGB used this opportunity to rid the gulags of its most vicious criminals, who continued their life of crime in the United States.  One of the earliest identified Russian gangs in the United States was the Potato Bag Gang.  Operating out of Brighton Beach, the gang members would pose as sailors who would offer to sell people a bag full of gold rubles for a thousand dollars. The victim would be shown a sample coin, which was real, and was given a large bag that ended up being filled with potatoes instead of coins. Russian gangs would become more and more involved in more serious criminal enterprises like prostitution, extortion, and theft. As Russian gangs became deeper involved in the criminal underworld, they would develop business relationships with the American Mafia. Russian organized groups would eventually spread across the country into California. 

            
It was a certain set of circumstances at the end of the Soviet Union that lead to the criminal underworld thriving upon the introduction of the free market. President Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader that reintroduced the notion of private business ownership back into Russia after sixty years of strict state control. Gorbachev’s Law of Commons allowed private Russian entrepreneurs to open up businesses, but with the ability for anyone to open up a business came competition. Business rivals would employ hired thugs to muscle in on the competition. The Russian police didn’t have the financial backing to compete with the onslaught of violence that was unleashed by the introduction of private ownership. This caused the street gangs to become privatized law enforcement agencies. According to McMafia, by Misha Glenny, “Instead of paying taxes to the state (which had no idea how to tax new small-scale private enterprise, businessmen willingly handed over between 10 and 30 percent to local thugs that would ensure in exchange that they could continue trading, free from the violence of the gruppirovki, or street gang, working on behalf of the competitors.”

           
Law enforcement agencies, both in America and Russia, began to notice that many Russian criminals connected to organized crime had scores of tattoos decorating their bodies. Same with the Japanese Yakuza, tattoos are an important part of Russian crime. “The tattoos present a picture of the inmate's criminal history. Tattoos are like a passport, a biography, a uniform with medals. They reflect the convict's interests, his outlook on life, his world view. A prisoner with an incorrect or unauthorized tattoo could be punished or killed by fellow inmates.” The importance of the relationship between tattoos and the Russian criminal culture can be seen in the movie Eastern Promises. Directed by David Cronenberg, the film stars Viggo Mortensen as a Russian gangster who works for a powerful vor in contemporary London. There is a scene where Mortensen’s character is being accepted into the criminal organization he is working for, but must go through a rigorous interview with the vor leadership. Mortensen is completely nude during this ceremony, so that the vor may see the tattoos housed on his body. 

Though it looked as if criminal gangs were taking over Russia, “...it was indeed tamed stuff. The mob was largely a collection of inchoate street gangs who still had to watch their backs for the cops or the KGB.”  It wasn’t until Boris Yeltsin came into power, after a failed coup against Gorbachev, that organized criminals would be able to evolve into the global power that it is today. Yeltsin announced in 1992 that the Russian government would free all prices. Price liberalization would be to Russian criminals what prohibition was to criminals in America. While the prices of goods on which the everyday Russian were concerned about, like food, was liberalized; the prices on goods such as: oils, gas, diamonds, and metals stayed at their Soviet-subsidized prices. Prices on theses natural resources can be as much as forty times cheaper than the world market price. Conveniently, at the same time the government decided to privatize the monopoly that the Soviet Union had imposed on the import/export of all goods and commodities.  It was this set of circumstances that lead to a super wealthy upper class of Russians, referred to as the oligarchs. But while a few private citizens were reaping the riches of the introduction of capitalism into Russia, most of the population fell further into poverty, with only a weak middle class that stood in between. Another problem with the emergence of the free market was that “the police and even the KGB were clueless as to how one might enforce contract law. The protection rackets and Mafiosi were not; their central role in the new Russian economy was to ensure that contracts entered into were honored.” This meant that the oligarchs of Russia and organized criminals again entered into a seemingly beneficial relationship. Even though the new capitalist society in Russia was built on blood, organized criminal gangs enforced a degree of stability during this economic transition.

With this new influx of money and power into the hands of criminals, the title of vor was able to be purchased. The ability to simply purchase the title, instead of earning it by serving several years in prison, led to the debasement of the authority and respect that came with the title, and eventually to the destruction of the highly organized hierarchy of thieves that existed in the Soviet prisons. The destruction of the “thief’s law” crumbled into street gangs and other simple criminal networks.  A factor that set apart Russian organized crime from organized crime in other countries is that “there were about twenty major gangs in Moscow, and dozens of minor gangs, some of them Slav and some Caucasian. Although there were tensions between the so-called ethnic groups, both sides were wary of each other’s influence and power.” This meant that organized crime was so prevalent after the introduction of capitalism that dozens of groups co-existed (or tried) in one city. If that many gangs existed in Moscow at one time, that would only mean that thousands of criminal organizations existed across Russia during this time. It was during this Darwin-esque period in the Russian underworld that some of these organized gangs evolved from the private enforcement arm of the oligarchs into highly organized criminal organizations. One of the best examples of this was Chechen organized crime. Chechen gangsters were notorious for their violence and ruthlessness. But according to Mark Galeotti, a fifteen year veteran of studying organized crime in Russia, “The Chechen mafia became a brand name, a franchise, a McMafia if you like. They would sell the moniker “Chechen” to protection rackets in other towns provided they paid, of course, and provided they always carried out their word. If a group claimed a Chechen connection but didn’t carry out its threats to the letter, it was devaluing the brand. The original Chechens would come after them.” This meant that as Russian organized crime developed, it was not guided by strict “family loyalties”, like the American Mafia, but rather by transactions.

Another example of the blurred line between the state and organized crime can be seen under the presidency of Slobodan Milošević. Milošević, while he served as President of Serbia, developed a profitable relationship with Serbian gangsters. Serbian organized crime groups were allowed to reap the profits of smuggling oil and cigarettes during the sanctions that were enforced during the Yugoslav Wars. In return, Milošević would get part of the cut and the gangsters would carry out assassinations at his request. The war in former Yugoslavia wasn’t the only war being fought. The bloody “cigarette wars” broke out in Serbia. The scramble for the monopoly over the cigarette trade even involved Milošević’s own son, Marko Milošević. The violence would only crescendo when Milošević’s lost power in the Bulldozer Revolution of October 2000. This power vacuum resulted in several daylight assassinations of high ranking Serbian gangsters.

The organized crime bosses who survived the turmoil of the 90s in Russia welcomed the election of President Vladimir Putin. President Putin, an ex-KGB agent, restored the former power of the KGB under the name of the FSB. Putin also became the scorn of the oligarchs, who claimed that he was the reincarnation of Stalin. Putin was able to fashion a new system of government that brought the aspects of capitalism and market authoritarianism together. This caused the easy money days of the oligarchs to come to an end. The threat of money becoming scarce caused the oligarchs to continue their investment in the protection rackets of organized crime. But the gangsters employed by the oligarchs seemed to be facing a new competition, ex-KGB agents. Since the fall of the Soviet Union hundreds of ex-KGB agents found themselves without a job. Instead of joining Russia’s newly formed police service, several went into the business of organized crime. Almost all of the major oligarchs had at least one former KGB man on their payroll to advise them on security. Former Director of the CIA, John M. Deutch, said “I do agree that in Russian organized crime there is a presence of ex-security service members, KGB members, and ex-military members. That is certainly the case.” But, according to Dr. Walter Zarycky, professor of political science at New York University, “The Russian mafia and the KGB are allies, not enemies, and in many cases they are one and the same." Dr. Zarycky’s claim that Russian organized crime and ex-intelligence officers are working together makes sense. Ever since the turn of the century, Russian criminals have become involved in crimes over the internet. Several ex-KGB agents organized the Russian Business Network (RBN), which has become a notorious cybercrime organization. Using their technical skills for crime, rather than for the state, the internet service provided by the RBN creates a safe place for the sharing of child pornography, phishing/spamming scams, credit card fraud, corporate espionage, and the ability for criminals to target a victim individually. “The Russians have everyone nailed cold in terms of technical ability," said Greg Hoglund, CEO of cyber security company HBGary. "The Russian crime guys have a ridiculous toolkit. They're targeting end users in many cases, so they have to be sophisticated."

Cyberspace was not the only place where Russian organized criminals were spreading to. “Law enforcement personnel in many countries — including Spain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, France, Israel, Britain, and even the United States — have been surprised by how “confidently” criminal groups consisting of people from the former Soviet Union now dominate their national criminal worlds.”  Part of the reason that criminals are able to spread abroad so successfully is because Interpol, the international police agency, does not maintain the kind of files that allow for an even approximate assessment of the number of Russian criminals operating abroad. Though Interpol hasn’t taken an interest in the spread of Russian organized crime, the National Prosecutor of Italy has claimed that here are “up to 300,000” Russian criminals operating in foreign countries. .” Europe and the United States are not the only areas that Russian gangsters have their eyes on. The longstanding institutional weaknesses of several countries in the Caribbean and Latin America have given Russian criminals the chance they need to establish themselves. The absence of transparency and effective state monitoring of the banking systems in Latin America have left them vulnerable to penetration by Russian money launderers. But just because Russian organized crime has spread across the world, doesn’t mean their hierarchy structure has. “Russian organized crime is neither monolithic nor necessarily hierarchical, especially abroad. Indeed, much of the heavy lifting in international illegal commerce, from heroin trafficking to the smuggling of radioactive material and counterfeit money, is done by ad hoc criminal coalitions with few apparent resources, little formal structure, and uncertain connections with the political or official upperworld. Such groups commonly coalesce for one or two deals, divide up the proceeds and then disband.” This could be the reason that the spread of Russian organized crime has been so difficult to stop by authorities. The ability to host small criminal groups overseas rather than expanding an entire criminal organization may be hard to catch. To quote the film The Usual Suspects, “One cannot be betrayed if one has no people.”

Despite being involved in: human smuggling, the international drug trade, murder for hire, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, and various types of cybercrime, the most alarming crime committed by Russian gangsters, both overseas and at home, are their alleged links with terrorist. In the mid-1970s, the company Inslaw, INC. developed a program called PROMIS (Prosecutor's Management Information System) to be used by the Justice Department. The program was a database designed to handle papers and documents generated by law enforcement agencies and courts. PROMIS was also a tool used by law enforcement to track people through credit card purchases, entry and exits visas, and telephone usage. Robert Hanasen, the former FBI agent who was convicted of spying, secured a copy of the PROMIS software and then sold it to Russian gangsters. Allegedly it was from there that Russian organized crime figures sold a copy of PROMIS to Osama Bin Laden for $2 million dollars. Using this program, Bin Laden would be able to penetrate U.S. databases and banking systems without being detected. He would also be able to counter the ability of various intelligence agencies to track him. On June 15, 2001, a story by Washington Times reporter Jerry Serper said “The software delivered to the Russian handlers and later sent to Bin Laden, according to sources, is believed to be an upgraded version of a program known as PROMIS.” Though the United States government continued to deny that Bin Laden had any type of program, the United States announced that they discontinued using PROMIS a year after 9/11. Britain and Germany discontinued their use of the PROMIS program shortly after the United States made their announcement.  Besides stolen government programs, there is also fear that Russian criminal syndicates may smuggle a nuclear weapon or the material to build a nuclear weapon into the hands of terrorist. A study of a number of Russia’s “closed cities”, named that because of the because of the increased security and limited access that apply to them because of its housing of nuclear weapons and material, found that Russian administrators haven’t focused enough on the possible linkage of criminals and terrorist activity. The study claims that a large number of convicts return to these “closed cities” after they serve their prison sentences. The study also claims that there is a large drug trade in the closed city of Ozersk, suggesting the presence of criminals within the closed city. This criminal presence leads to the smuggling of people into the closed city, a crime for which the penalty is not severe. Also, there is a large population of reported Islamic propagandists that in live in the towns that surround Ozersk.  It is important to note that Russian organized crime syndicates have never stolen a nuclear bomb and have put it on the black market, but according to this study the motive, means, and opportunity are there. Another link that could possibly exists between Russian gangsters and terrorist could be the drug trade. Thanks to an almost a worldwide prohibition on narcotics, terrorist organizations like the Taliban or al Qaeda fund their activities through the drug trade. The cultivation of the opium poppy has gone up more than 1000 percent since the first year of the United States invading Afghanistan. More than likely, the Taliban was rearming itself by taking control of this opium harvest and enforcing high taxes on its distribution. While profitable, most of the cash that the terrorist receive from the narcotics trade goes to paying off the network that smuggles it. It is somewhere along this distribution line that it is believed that Russian gangsters help push the drugs that help fund terrorism, either knowingly or unknowingly. 

Though its origins come from the repressive gulags that Stalin ruled over, Russian organized crime syndicates became a global power only years after the Soviet Union fell. Though at first these gangs acted as the safeguards of capitalism in Russia, they would eventually evolve not only to pose a threat to Russia, but to most of the world.

Bibliography

-Bagley, Bruce. GLOBALIZATION AND TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME: THE RUSSIAN MAFIA IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN.Globalization, Weak States and Transnational Organized Crime. School of International Studies, 15 Nov. 2001. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.

Glenny, Misha. McMafia: A Journey through the Global Criminal Underworld. New York: Knopf, 2008. Print.

-Globe, Paul. Russian Mafia' Abroad Now 300,000 Strong, Journal Says Read More: Http://www.themoscowtimes.com/columns/article/russian-mafia-abroad-now-300000-strong-journal-says/400786.html#ixzz1sUpHCnp3 The Moscow Times." The Moscow Times. 02 Mar. 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/columns/article/russian-mafia-abroad-now-300000-strong-journal-says/400786.html

-Goldman, David. "The Cyber Mafia Has Already Hacked You." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 27 July 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. .

H.R. Rep. No. Congress-Y 4. IN 8/16: C 86/3 (1996). Print.

-Orttung, Robert, and Louise Shelley. Linkages Between Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in Nuclear Smuggling. PONARS Policy Memo No. 392. Dec. 2005. Print.

-Rep. No. The Threat of Russian Organized Crime NCJ 187085 at 1-6 (2001). Print.

-Ruppert, Michael C. Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. New York: New Society Publishers, 2004. Print.