Hoops and Hoods

The Tenement Effect -- poverty and prejudice as builders of character, or of the lack of it -- figures as well in Lansky, an HBO biopic of the Mob's idea man, which piques the interest primarily by the participation of actor Richard Dreyfuss, who rarely does television; writer David Mamet, who (barring a couple adapted stage works) never has; and director John McNaughton, whose CV includes Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Wild Things and several episodes of Homicide. This meat has, of course, been ground before, previous screen Meyer Lanskys having included Mark Rydell (Havana), Ben Kingsley (Bugsy) and Patrick Dempsey (Mobsters). It was partially the stuff of Once Upon a Time in America and The Godfather, Part II, with Lee Strasberg Lanskyesque if not the man outright. Why are we here again? Well might you ask.

The film, which ranges across seven decades and two hemispheres -- from Polish shtetl to the Lower East Side, Vegas to Miami, Havana to the Wailing Wall, as Lansky in his golden years seeks refuge in Israel under its "Law of Return" -- suffers some from budgetary constraints, though by and large a lot is suggested with a little, but more seriously from the usual compressed historical base-covering, which tends to crowd out actual drama and emotional detail and allows time for ideas to bake only halfway. Illeana Douglas, as Lansky's first wife, shoots by like the Lexington Avenue express; we see a little more, but not a lot, of Eric Roberts (as best friend Bugsy Siegel), Anthony LaPaglia (best Italian friend Lucky Luciano) and Beverly D'Angelo (wife two). Not surprisingly, given the author, the film is liveliest in its longer speeches; it's a monologue manqué, almost, a potential one-man-show crumbled and scattered within a "real" movie that seems at once well made and yet only partially formed. An unnecessary trip with patches of fine scenery (which Dreyfuss, very good, mostly declines to chew). Pointless, yet accomplished. Not a total waste of time.

PASSING GLORY TNT Premieres Sunday, February 21, 8 p.m.   FREE OF EDEN Showtime Premieres Sunday, February 21, 8 p.m.   LANSKY HBO Premieres Saturday, February 27, 8 p.m.