CITY OF INDUSTRY

CITY OF INDUSTRY brings Harvey Keitel (Roy) back to the screen to tame a young and impetuous criminal. The story centers around a member of the older school of violence teaching a lesson to the new and less controlled generation of independent killers and ethnic gangs. After the loose cannon, Skip (Stephen Dorff), joins Roy and his brother Lee (Timothy Hutton) in a jewelry heist, the young new avenger must be taught a mortal lesson about whom to trust and whom to kill.

Lee, a classy, mobster-about-town, plans to make more than $3 million in a jewelry heist at Kohner Jewelers. Having selected a hit crew and chosen a specific day for the heist, he must bring order among these independent thieves and wait for the right moment. Lee has invited his brother, Roy, to join the crew, because they can work to hit the back rooms and collect the loot. Jorge (Wade Dominquez ), a married father with two children who is about to do his time in jail for past robberies, will cover the front show room and act as a look-out. Finally, Skip will bring the weapons, just in case, and drive the get-away car.

At this point, there is no cause to kill people, but only to scare them and beat-up a few. The waiting is suspenseful, but the heist is clean. The thieves drive away and are not followed because of computer confusion at the police station due to Jorgeís jamming the security system. While the crew is calmly splitting the money, the young and impulsive Skip shoots both Lee and Jorge and begins gunning for Roy, but the savvy criminal gets away.

After some reflection, Roy sets out to find Skip and the money. He leaves Palm Beach for Los Angeles and finds more in the CITY OF INDUSTRY than the old school taught. The new generation of criminals has the backing and protection of a variety of ethnic gangs: African-American and Chinese-American. As Roy is asks questions and beats the truth out of several people, Skip is laundering the jewels into cash and setting up gangs to stop Roy.

Although Roy is from the old school, He is virile and determined, and keeps catching up to the youngster. He meets Jorgeís wife, and she nurses him back to health several times. Finally, she is helps him catch Skip for a nominal fee of $100,000. Being a part of Jorgeís previous robberies, she knows how the money is laundered. With this help, Roy steals the money from Skip before he has a chance to pick it up from a Chinese laundry run by the Chinese Mafia.

Now, the battle turns more personal, and Skip uses all the gun power and gang power he can muster to defeat Roy and get his money back. In so doing, he loses his contacts in the gangs and violence explodes on the screen.

This story is not about trust and relationship like many mobster movies. After the initial apprehension of the jewelry heist, the suspense dies, and the plot is too predictable. There are a series of beatings until Roy and Skip face off.

Roy has a problem, but the audience does not know if he wants to avenge his brotherís death, get the money he feels he ìdeservesî from the heist or if he is just plain angry at the young upstart for showing him up. He believes in using force to intimidate people, but he does not shoot people in cold blood the way the new generation does. The young wife of Jorge is kind to Roy, but even she will not help him for the right reasons, and when the money turns up, she keeps it and runs off.

While the acting ranges from adequate to good, CITY OF INDUSTRY is distressing in that it makes every man the ultimate judge of other menís actions and fates. If Roy does not like Skip, he can use brute force to ìteach him a lesson.î The running theme is survival of the fittest, and the result of this humanistic lifestyle is anarchy. There is no room for compassion and understanding and the storyís setting gives the viewer reason to fear this lifestyle.