Married to the Mob

By Steven Zeitchik

Some genres seem tired after just a few entries -- we're looking at you, Vegas-bachelor comedy -- and some manage to refresh themselves tirelessly, beyond the point where they have any right to do so.

"The Wrestler," the best-directed movie we've seen in years, fits the category. Empty shell of a man, stripper with a heart of gold -- we've seen it more times than a bad Jeremiah Wright attack ad. And yet the movie blew us away. If awards voters have any sense, they'll be showering Darren Aronofsky with statues.

Mob movies, meanwhile, would have seemed to run their course sometime after "Goodfellas" made its triumphant exit out of theaters. But then came "The Sopranos" and, well, you know the rest. There have been gems in the post-Goodfellas era, particularly in the undercover-mob genre -- the underrated ("Donnie Brasco"), the solid but overrated ("The Departed") and the superfluous '("Analyze This").

Now Paramount, already invested in a couple of mob projects, is taking on a new one. It's called "Making Jack Falcone," and if you've caught a 60 Minutes segment recently, you know that it's about Jack Garcia, an undercover FBI agent who pulled off the impossible for way longer than he should have, infiltrating the Gambino crime family and coming within weeks of being a made man (he revealed his cover after a big bust).

The studio, along with producers Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher, has acquired rights to a book Garcia wrote and hired Peter Buchman, the white-hot writer who sets new marks for versatility: he may be one of the few people who can write "Che," "Eragon" and a 19th century historical dramedy for Werner Herzog. Steven Soderbergh, who of course helmed the former, a four-hour Cuban-revolutionary epic, is even coming on to exec produce. (Restless types need not worry; "Falcone" will be a lot shorter than "Che.")

Buchman told Risky Biz that "Falcone" will a perfect vehicle for an actor with shapeshifting tendencies; this is a mob man, after all, who moved fluidly not only between scenes but ethnicities. His book is pretty amazing from what we've seen, and it seems like if you're going to make another undercover-mafia movie, this is the one to do it with.

Mob movies, we should hate you. And yet we can't get enough.