THE YOUNG AMERICANS (1993) *1/2 Despite an inadequate and unattractive cast, wilfully violent realism set against a lackluster and unrealistic plot, and melodramatic music that misses the scenes it accompanies by light years to the effect of making you hope that the wrong soundtrack has been put on, Danny Cannon delivers a good looking film. Modern London has rarely looked so dramatically regal, not that there's a shot of anything having to do with royalty-this film is in the gutter and determined to stay there. As so often happens the writer looking to illuminate things for our edification has never really looked around himself, leading to the occasional megalapse of credibility (the cops make great efforts to blow their big informer on a possession charge and then release the perp in time to warn everyone about the big sting that night, drug kingpin bodyguards stand there talking when confronted by young punks, etc.) that's fatal to these alleged reality plots. So ultimately it's a bit unsettling, not for the blood and gore or plot or actors, Harvey Keitel still checking up on his divorced wife-there's reality for you-possibly the only aspect of the plot that the writers were qualified to address, but for the shadows of unrepresented characters that really do exist and about whom we know nothing more than we did before the film started.
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