File this one under legal desperation.
The lawyer for the woman who sued the producers of "Drive" for creating a so-called misleading trailer that promised more "Fast and the Furious" type action than the film actually contained, is talking about the other allegation against the Nicolas Winding Refn-directed, Ryan Gosling-starring film: in addition to misleading, he says that the picture is anti-semitic, as well.
As first pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter, the lawsuit claims, "Drive was a motion picture that substantially contained extreme gratuitous defamatory dehumanizing racism directed against members of the Jewish faith, and thereby promoted criminal violence against members of the Jewish faith."
In the film, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, both Jews, are the principle "bad guys," though Gosling, the protagonist and "good guy," is a criminal, too. The attorney, Martin Leaf, took to the comments section of Candlerblog.com to defend his point after the author of the blog -- a Jew -- took issue with the suit's accusations (as first pointed out by Gawker).
Real life Jewish gangsters, such as Mickey Cohen, Meyer Lansky and Bugsey Seigel, were portrayed in film as good fathers and sympathetic characters, he wrote. "Not so with the cartoon one dimensional Jews in Drive, right down to the gold pinkey rings, gold watch, and thick gold chains, that only a "senior citizen Jew stereotype" department could have come up with."
Leaf continued, writing. "When the gangsters embody most, if not all false negative Jewish stereotypes, that's racism. The whole Nino/Izzy slur, straight from Nazi propaganda, about the Jew never fitting in, but always trying to mask his identity. Or the false racist canard about Jews being a threat to the Christian child. Both incorporated here, neither necessary to be a gangster. I could go on for each of the Jew hating [sic] steretypes that the Jews in the movie 'just so happen' to embody."
It was Perlman's character that was more opulent with his wealth; Brooks, on the other hand, was heartbroken to have to go through with a number of murders. In addition, they speak of feeling inferior and mistreated by higher up Italian mobsters, and object to the anti-semitic names they're called by them.
In any case, you can decide for yourself by clicking over to Candlerblog.com and reading their debate.