10th and Wolf DVD, 2006

James Marsden stars as Tommy, an ex-Marine who gets roped into going undercover in the old neighbourhood in this film from Crash co-writer Robert Moresko. Giovanni Ribisi plays his cousin Joey, the slightly unhinged boss of the local crime family - they've been friends since they were kids. Brad Renfro is Vincent, Tommy's dim-witted younger brother and Joey's right-hand man after Tommy left to join the Marines. There are lots of violent flashbacks to when all these guys brawled around the old neighbourhood and went to mob funerals. Now there's a villainous Italian drug lord trying to seize control and a turf war is imminent.

It's up to Tommy to take the drug lord down without getting his little brother killed or Joey arrested in the process. Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) is Tommy's love interest, an attractive mob widow now tending bar at a strip club co-owned by the coke-snorting thug who killed her husband (Dash Mihok). Episodic and entertaining, 10th and Wolf plays out like a greatest-hits collection of scenes from other mob movies, but this is not a bad thing.

An array of well-known names show up in bit parts: Leslie Ann Warren is great as Joey's falling-down-drunk of a mother, Dennis Hopper is an old-time Mafia guy, Val Kilmer is a deranged bar patron, Tommy Lee is one of Joey's crew, and Brian Dennehy is an unscrupulous federal agent.