Basic Trope: A life of organized crime is exciting, lucrative, glamorous, and enjoyable.
- Straight: In the slums of the Philippines (or any other Wretched Hive), Eddie "Knucklehead" Navarro, a directionless young street thug, joins The Organization and is immediately taken in by the glitzy atmosphere and breakneck action he experiences as an enforcer.
- Exaggerated: Without breaking a sweat, Eddie ends up with a penthouse suite and six figure income at the end of his first week.
- Downplayed: Despite having to watch himself around the cops every now and then, Eddie makes more money and garners more respect as a criminal than he ever did as a civilian.
- Justified: The criminals Eddie encounters respect their communities and have lines they won't cross under any circumstances.
- Inverted: After a lifetime of depraved violence and looking over his shoulder, Lawrence "Hard Rock" Rizzo turns informant, serves his time, and settles down with a good woman in a quiet little town, happy to be free at last from the criminal lifestyle.
- Subverted: The gangster life is a candy shell on top of a dog turd: the cars are chop shop rejects, the women shallow and disloyal, the money firmly in the boss's account in Switzerland, and violence reigns between hot-tempered thugs when skin-deep flattery inevitably fails. It takes Eddie all but ten minutes to decide it's not worth it in the slightest.
- Parodied: Everyone in the story has flashy cars, flashier houses, and at least one very flashy mistress.
- Zig Zagged: The ups and downs of criminal life are inflicted upon Eddie.
- Averted: Eddie doesn't embark on a life of crime, or if he does, he doesn't enjoy it much.
- Enforced: The higher-ups make a concerted effort to keep their businesses as legitimate as possible to avoid violence from both rivals and the cops.
- Lampshaded: Eddie wonders out loud how a job this great can be illegal.
- Invoked: Those involved in the criminal underworld use this trope to rationalize their choice.
- Defied: Crime does not pay at all for Eddie; he ends up broke, on the run from the law and mentally destroyed by the experience.
- Exploited:
- The head honchos of The Organization use the Hookers and Blow trappings of gangsterdom to sell the lifestyle to dumb kids who don't know any better and make off with the lion's share of their ill-gotten gains.
- Due to Eddie being more or less one of the more violent and brutish members of The Organization, is shown to be lacking in ambition and is only content with violence and luxury, which means that the higher ups only need to satiate his lusts for blood and bitches.
- Discussed: Tony Segundo, a high-ranking member of The Organization, sardonically describes the gangster lifestyle as "a nonstop blowjob" when describing its various perks.
- Conversed: Whenever together, Carlo and Carlito have a long-winded running conversation about how most people's conception of gangster movies leave out the shitty details and tend to stop right before the third act.
- Implied: Eddie's overwhelming desire for money and penchant for screwing other people makes him a shoo-in for a lucrative criminal career.
- Deconstructed: Eddie jumps at the chance to be a criminal because his 9-to-5 Burger Fool job sucks, his girlfriend regularly cheats on him, and the world pegs him for a loser every time he does anything on the straight and narrow. If being good gets him nothing, why not try being bad?
- Reconstructed: Eddy makes his way from the street to the penthouse and stays there, defying the traditional "rise and fall" narrative by surrounding himself with trustworthy, hardworking people and never forgetting the lessons he learned along the way, a feel-good story all around with an unambiguous Happy Ending.
Damn it feels good to go back to the main page.
