Imitation is a form of flattery, sure, but imitation also necessitates distance. Those who imitate are often not invested with their subjects on an intimate level and have to resort to the sort of mimicry that on its surface can do a good job of making you feel like you’re watching the real thing, but it’s all empty beyond that. Imitation, even if it’s good, is miles behind inspiration.
I watched two wannabe-Martin Scorsese mob knock-offs released in 2025, and one of them, Barry Levinson’s The Alto Knights, was inspired by Scorsese’s The Irishman. It isn’t a good movie, don’t get me wrong, but Levinson is a genuine student of Scorsese. Like with Bugsy, in his latest movie he understands the true engine behind Scorsese’s films which is not the whiskey drinking, the bespoke suits, the cigar smoke, the nightclubs, or the guys in the trunk but way the camera moves to excavate a space, where the characters feign an understanding of a world that is very clearly passing them by. The Alto Knights fails in its writing, acting, and storytelling, but it understands the lost souls, or lack thereof, of Scorsese’s best mob stories.
Then we get to Danny A. Abeckaser’s The Perfect Gamble, which is like a knock-off’s knock-off. It’s a dress-up imitation that tries to mimic all the tics of what guys who enjoy stuff like Goodfellas and Casino see as “cool aesthetics” but that otherwise lacks any sort of flavor or originality.
Familiarity
Charlie (David Arquette) is fresh out of a stint in the joint and a fish out of water in Georgia (the country, not the state) after opening a gambling parlor with his main man Felix (director Abeckaser), but he realizes quickly that unlike in Brooklyn and the “old days,” he doesn’t call the shots here overseas. The Russian mob is all over the place, and so are corrupt casino owners who have the politicians in their pocket.
Abeckaser does a nice job setting the scope of the situation despite the low budget and the fact that The Perfect Gamble is almost a single-location film. We get to feel the bravado, tension, and the invisible strings of the situation rather clearly. However, the world just doesn’t feel like much beyond a pale pastiche. The dialogue is labored and vague, with phrases like “I want my fucking money!” and “The thing about casinos is…” being spouted with thick New Yawwwk accents.
Imitation Is Not Inspiration
Arquette is giving his best DeNiro-as-Jimmy Conway impersonation, and Abeckaser is an amalgamation of the loud-mouth in-over-his-hot-head sidekick a la Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito or Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti. It’s nice for a while because you get to laugh and feel charmed by its familiarity, like an Asylum film or a SyFy Channel original. All of that goes out the window once the hackneyed plot kicks in, however.
As Russian mobsters start taking territory from Charlie and Felix admits he’s been in debt with them, we start to see the limitations more clearly. Abeckaser retreats back to the most spiritless clichés of mob movies of yesteryear: an f-word dropping every three syllables, guys telling each other to “have a fuckin’ drink and calm down,” and a female character, Sonia (Daniella Pick Tarantino), who blends in with the furniture and hangs onto Charlie, even spelling out how to scheme the Russian mob against each other.
Conclusion
The more I watched this movie, the more it became clear to me what makes Scorsese’s movies authentic and insightful and his imitators not much more than cardboard cutouts. Films like Casino understand their characters as being lost, desperate souls who think they understand the world they inhabit but don’t. Films like The Perfect Gamble treat their characters like they are preachers or tour guides, masters of their domain and demonstrating to us the ways they can get out of tough situations. It’s sports, not life.
The Perfect Gamble was released in U.S. theaters on November 14, 2025.
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