Globalisation, like any other phenomenon, has its own dark side. It may manifest itself in the spreading of certain forms of social pathology that were supposed to be alien and unimaginable for certain parts of the world. For the makers of 1993 British crime drama The Young Americans the thing in question is American-style form of gangland violence, which was alien to the more peaceful and enlightened Britain.
The plot begins with a series of brutal hits of gangland bosses that rocked the London underworld. The police, accustomed to the old and less bloody ways of settling gangland scores, is helpless and it needs outside help. That help arrives in the form of Joe Harris (played by Harvey Keitel), DEA agent who is about to use its long experience in fighting drug lords and advice Scotland Yard how to react to the new threat. He soon realises that the mastermind behind the killings is Frazer (played by Viggo Mortensen), American drug baron who came to London and found a simple and ingenious way to take over the city's drug trade by recruiting naive youngsters from city slums and turning them into cheap and expendable assassins. One of the potential recruits is Chris (played by Craig Kelly) whose late father had chosen the path of crime. Nevertheless it is Chris who is going to help Harris in bringing Frazer down by agreeing to infiltrate drug lord's organisation.
Danny Cannon was praised as one of the most promising British filmmakers in the early 1990s and this film shows why. Low budget The Young Americans has plenty of impressive sights and sounds, and the atmosphere of the film is overwhelming. The photography of Vernon Leyton nicely captures images of London's mean streets, while the musical score by David Arnold (including Bjork's song "Play Dead") is the feast for people's ears. The acting is also very good, with reliable American character actors like Keitel and Mortensen working hand-in-hand with group of relatively unknown yet very talented young British actors (of which only Thandie Newton reached some sort of global fame afterwards). Unfortunately, the script and, to a lesser degree, direction were somewhat lacking. Danny Cannon overused slow motion and thus made this film longer than it should be. The script by David Hilton and Danny Cannon, apart from creating few impressive characters, also lacked substances and instead of plot we have Hollywood formulas and cliches. The most notable of them all is romantic and near apologist view of the local hoods as the last bastion of national pride, not very different from the way some black filmmakers in America used to glorify gangstas from U.S. inner city ghettos. Danny Cannon nevertheless had talent and The Young Americans is the reason why we should view his departure to Hollywood as a loss to British cinema.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on July 10th 2001)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/24909-the-young-americans?language=en-US Critic: AA
