The World History of Organized Crime (2001)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Scott Alexander

Features:

• Timeline of Critical Events for Each Featured Country
  

My Advice: Rent it

When someone uses the phrase "organized crime," images of men in pinstripe suits and tommy guns leap readily to mind. In reality, most American organized crime started out as a branch of other organized crime gangs in other parts of the world. It's really no secret that The History Channel produces some of the best documentaries on television today and this series is no exception. Each hour-long episode covers the history of organized crime in a different part of the world: Sicily, Russia, China, India, and Colombia. It's not exactly a world history, but given the fact that it's taking a fairly decent sampling and covering them well, we're able to forgive.

In these documentaries, the origin of organized crime in each country is uncovered in minute detail. It is interesting to note that all of the different countries have a massacre that mirrors our own St. Valentine's Day one. One other bit of trivia that stood out is how quickly each of the mafia became entwined into their respective governments. But these are just some of the tidbits that are handed out in this set--all handled in a thorough, yet interesting way through the use of interviews, footage and testimony.

Where this DVD is weak is in the special features department. Basically all you get is the option to play each of the episodes independently or one after another (without having to return to the main menu). Other than that you get timelines for each of the countries underworld. It basically is a text version of the same information that is presented in each of the documentaries, so you are not really gaining any new insight by reading them.

So, this is definitely worth the rental for a night (or two) of really good edutainment, but not worth adding to the collection permanently.