The Young Americans

1993 "No Honor. No Respect. No Remorse."
5.7| 1h43m| R| en
Details

Experienced New York Police Detective John Harris is sent to London to help a local task force investigate a series of gangster killings organized by a new player in town, an American. With the help of a young teen wronged by gangsters, Harris navigates London's seedy, drug-fuelled underworld in order to take down its new criminal empire.

Director

Producted By

PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

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Reviews

Console best movie i've ever seen.
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
LumpyMusic I found myself pausing the movie and then not returning for a couple of days. It was that UN-exciting. The film drags on forever with those "Oh so polite" British cops and that "Is he trying to play a bad cop?" Harvey K. All set in the Oh so boring scenery of what I presume is supposed to be the rough district of London.Harvey was a lot better bad cop in "Border".The film quickly gets to the point where you don't really care who committed what crime, who killed who, who the real bad guys are, you just want it to be over so you can go in the kitchen and make more nachos.
mat-tuck The Young Americans is set in London in the mid 1990s. The plot basically surrounds the London drugs trade and the British Police's crack down on it. Well what could be easier than that? Add Harvey Keitel as an American 'visiting adviser' from the DEA and a few shady characters.In whole its not a bad film, its over ten years old now and was obviously low budget! A scene where a Ford Granada explodes it clearly goes bang, and just as well because I doubt they could afford another to do it again. Cropping up in the film is a character called Chris who adds the love elements to the movie, played by Craig Kelly, who later finds more TV fame in the UK version of Queer as Folk.The annoying thing about this movie is the over acting "British" voice, making Harvey Keitel sound very American and the British officers toffy noised! For a movie made and set in London it is a poor feature.
Fisher L. Forrest You have to watch carefully, wearing ear protectors, to figure out that this film is about a bloody war waged by "young american" drug lords against the old hands in London. There is an American DEA agent to "advise" the London bobbies, but he isn't young. He does have an agenda of his own, but it emerges only obscurely, as does everything else, except the noise. Even the dialog is all but incomprehensible. It's a strange way to tell a story. The editing is of a piece with the rest of the treatment. Confusing. There are pluses, though. The camera work is innovative and often beautiful images emerge from the general murk. The cast, apart from Keitel, were largely unknown to me, but they were mostly first rate at limning the many characters in the London underworld. Many were also uncredited, strange in an era when the post credits usually scroll for at least 7 minutes.
Anders-10 You HAVE to remember that he made this at a young age and little examples of first class directing shine through. The Cinematrography is also of a high standard. The subject matter is of the dark world of London and what it holds for young Britains. For some enjoyment and a way of living is achieved through working for an American crime lord who has taken to living in London. Our hero has to decide whether to follow in the footsteps of his own father's past and accept a secure life of working for the American or to change tune and try something different. Those who have seen it and enjoyed it should check out his earlier film "Play Dead". It's probably "Young Americans" with more money and more experience