Very disappointing...

Thanks for the memories!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I only wish I could rate it higher on the scale than just ten stars.Talk about a lot of work that went into this one. I actually felt as if I was back in the early sixties when I was watching it. This was masterfully done. The scripting, to me was flawless. The development of the characters, was straight up, right. The scenery, well...brought to you by Good Ole Michael Mann. Largely some of the coolest style and presentation in Television and Cinema that I have seen yet. Mr. Mann brings deep emotional content and sustaining context to what he makes. I was traveling on a short vacation, I stopped into Tower Records in L.A. probably about (1995) and found the complete 'Crime Story' series on VHS for I believe it was merely $60.00 then. Needless to say I bought it. Then later on laser disk, but only found a couple. Now it has been put out on DVD!! Thankyou everyone in charge of production and ownership of the rights and especially WalMart for selling it on-line! Cheaper than when I bought it on VHS even. Every character together makes the 'tapestry' of the story complete. From the lawyer, David Abrams(Stephen Lang), the ever 'Bad', Ray Luca, to Johnny O'Donnell (David Caruso, now C.S.I.:Miami's Lt. Caine) Pauli Taglia the roly-poly happy go lucky, sometimes fearful,(when running into Turello) sidekick to head man 'Luca'. But, you can't forget (or even try) the king of the street Lt. Mike Turello! Now He's the man!!! His crew, including Big Walter Clemmons, Nate, Joey and of course Danny. All excellent detectives battling highly organized crime (or evil) in their fair city. The town and all the back ground in the story just rings true to form of that city in that era. The job putting this all together to make it that real, takes incredible work, time, effort, research. Even down to using real 'Morgue footage' actual film stock from 1963 for the real 1960s Chicago look. It was compiled and layered just right. But then the network that let this epic show, just go, I believe is really stupid. Just like other shows that have had total-life left and yet the network 'lunk-heads' pulled the plug instead of giving some better, (uh hmmm) P.R. than they had done, back then. This show inspired me and my creative mind. I didn't quite know in what way, then, but I know now. I recommend this awesome police-mafia drama, with some comical over tones to those who enjoy wheel made television. (***)P.S: I just bought the DVD set, and it is still a beauty to behold, now digitally remastered!!!!

Crime story is often considered a predecessor to more well-known but lower quality shows like the Sopranos which is essentially a soap opera with a minstrel show with Italian- Americans caricatures. Crime Story is a top 5 candidate for best crime drama of in TV history. It is the story of two men, one a smart, ambitious hoodlum determined to rise from small- time thievery to international kingpin, even if he has to kill his own mother to get there. The other is an old-fashioned, volatile policeman whose sole mission in life is to destroy the organized crime syndicate. There are both men on a quest that feels destined from day one to collide with the others quest. It is always clear to the audience that the reason for torellos hatred of luca and other criminals is his fundamental respect for human life and his adversary's lack of it. Mike Torello is the kind of cop who believes people are responsible for there actions and should be held accountable. This is the reason the show was set in the early 60s to begin with and the reason why torello is rapidly becoming a dinosaur. The Vietnam war begins late in the second season and you can feel torellos obsolesence coming on. Soon Americans will enter an era where public opinion leans toward blaming society for the criminals crimes and not the criminal. I Feel that if the series had gone on for 5-7 years instead of 2, we would have seen the locales and general feel of the show vary from season to season, with much character development. In the end assuming the shows final season was set around 1970 i think torello would have been considered a raving fascist lunatic in an asylum somewhere and ray luca would be running for office. I think crime story was as much about an important decade in American history as it was about these two men.

This show,and it's 1940s companion(also on NBC)"Private Eye",certainly made 1980s TV watching quite fun.I really enjoyed the exploits of Mike Torello and his group of crime fighters,and the scenery of Chicago and Las Vegas each and every week!!If you love shows like "The Untouchables",and "The Rookies",then you should give this one a try,you won't be sorry.Now that this series is available on DVD,it will finally be seen for the work of art that it is.I enjoy any series that re-creates a decade well,and "Crime Story"is no exception,the look and the feel of the show is pure 1960s,and the acting is excellent,in fact,so good that you find yourself rooting for the good guys without realizing it.All in all,a tour-de-force of the small screen!

This tv show had it all, great characters played by a fantastic cast, some of the coolest cops and villians you could ever ask for, great music, the cars, the atmosphere and dialogue, and a plot that went way beyond any single episode! It's the story of one cop named Michael Torello (Dennis Farina) who makes it his life's mission to bring down a "ruthless hood" named Ray Luca (Anthony Denison) who is quickly working his way to the top of the Chicago organized crime syndicate. Along the way, you're introduced to other key figures, like Andrew Dice Clay's character Max Goldman and a performance by Joseph Wiseman as Manny Weisbord that stands just as strong as anything The Godfather produced (in my absolutely biased opinion, of course). Don't forget Pauli Taglia, Ray's henchman, and rockin' Frank Holman (the same guy who plays Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs), who bears an intriguing resemblance to the Rev. Horton Heat! The series started in Chicago, migrated to Las Vegas about a third of the way through, and ends in Latin America of all places. I won't give anything away here, but I will warn you that if you see the pilot, you'll want to get your hands on the rest of the series. Unfortunately, that's not as easy. The tapes show up on ebay regularly but aren't cheap. Good news is that Anchor Bay is releasing all the episodes on dvd really soon, so it's probably just better to wait for that. Alot of the tapes were copied in SLP mode anyway, and don't have the best quality. This series has a severe cult following now, even though it only aired for two seasons in the '80s. I introduced my girlfriend at the time to this show, and while she was skeptical at first, by the end she insisted we had to get the rest of the series. You'll watch it over and over again and pick up on stuff you miss everytime, not to mention the stories are just classic and filled to overflowing with one-liners and scenes! Michael Mann is a genius for making this show happen. I hated Miami Vice, but this was just "the greatest thing, since bullets"---Yikes!!!!, I could write on and on about the merits of this series!! It's hard to believe how few people know about Crime Story! Don't be one of those people, check it out!