'It ain't enough, Pop! ' grates the young 'Lucky' Luciano (Christian Slater) in this moody portrait of the friendship of four of the gangland legends from America's prohibition era, setting the scene for their rise to the top in the world of crime. Nothing if not efficient, even though it rolls out most of the clichés in the gangsters' book, the film fiddles with the facts to create a sort of Young Machine Guns. Slater is first-rate as Luciano: dangerous and yet still sympathetic. Patrick Dempsey, Richard Grieco and Costas Mandylor are well in character as his cohorts Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello, while F Murray Abraham, Anthony Quinn and Michael Gambon are the gang bosses they must elbow past. Nicholas Sadler also makes a strong impression as the maniac killer 'Mad Dog' Coll. Despite the formula script, director Michael Karbelnikoff achieves a sense of imminent danger and death about almost every scene. Not a classic, but a well-crafted addition to what in modern days has seemed to be filmdom's most popular genre.

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