Word: gangland
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Gangsters who blow out each other's brains may be performing a public service. Unless, that is, the public starts getting in the way. Such is the crisis facing law-enforcement officials in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the city's worst intrafamily gangland war in 30 years is now raging. The culprits: the black-sheep Colombo clan, the Mafia's most reckless, divisive and dull-witted crime outfit. Not only have six members or associates of the group been killed since late November, but at least five innocent bystanders have also been shot or otherwise injured. Seeking to bring the gunplay...
...easiest to catch," and they may be looking to merge, says Joseph Coffey, a top investigator with the New York State organized crime task force. The combination would probably amount to a hostile takeover, since two Colombo factions are said to be on the brink of a major gangland war. When the Colombos aren't bickering, they're active in businesses ranging from loan- sharking to air freight and liquor distribution. Meanwhile in the Bonanno clan, reputed boss Joseph Massina, 48, is serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering. His brother-in-law is reportedly trying to keep alive...
...hundreds in GoodFellas. In My Blue Heaven, written by Pileggi's wife Nora Ephron as a kind of comic coda to the Scorsese picture, Steve Martin plays a Mafia rat in a Witness Protection Program out West. At Christmas, Paramount has The Godfather Part III, a climax to the gangland Nibelungen Ring, starring Al Pacino, Diane Keaton and a cast of many Coppolas...
...better than Batman. Warren Beatty, Hollywood's most distinctive producer- star, scores after a long dry spell with a gangland drama of wit and grace, narrative sweep and unique visual style. All this and Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman (strutting their roguish stuff while devil-dolled up in grotesque makeup) and a knockout Madonna too. It may not be a great movie -- after all, it's only comic-book art -- but it's great moviemaking...
...early on, says Lieut. Russell Olson, the Beverly Hills chief of detectives, "we had suspicions of the boys' involvement." Police had ruled out a gangland murder because of the sheer savagery of the attack. "Mob killings are 'clean'; this one wasn't," says an officer. Suspicions were further heightened when family members told police that a copy of what might have been a new will had been erased from Jose Menendez's home computer. "The focus became very clear over the past few months," said Chief of Police Marvin Iannone. There was some physical evidence, but "we were waiting...