The Young Americans (1993)
Harvey Keitel plays an American Drug Enforcement Agent who travels to London to apprehend a gangster (Viggo Mortensen) making London's clubland his own by hiring naive young men to carry out his dirty work.
The debut film of director Danny Cannon. Although he only made two others -the ill received Judge Dread and slasher sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer - there's a lot of promise here in a film which is decidedly edgy in tone even if it's basically a remake of the John Wayne vehicle Brannigan (1975). There's added seediness and violence as the film pitches the new young criminals against old school London gangsters in the form of Terence Rigby. Meanwhile Harvey Keitel who was born for roles like this is excellent as is Craig Kelly who plays a youngster at the center of this drug fueled world.
The Young Americans garnered interest at the time thanks to the hit single Play Dead from Bjork and composer David Arnold. It's also interesting that a remix of Nine Inch Nails song Gave Up plays during one of the club scenes and this version has never been heard anywhere else other than this single scene.
For whatever reason The Young Americans is totally off the radar nowadays and has never had a Blu-ray release. A crying shame as i think it's excellent and would upgrade my bare bones Anchor Bay dvd in a heartbeat.
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