Great British Gangster Movies
- Thread starter Voley
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The greatest musical gangster film of all time - made by a largely British cast and crew: Bugsy Malone
True. I considered mentioning it too, but then I thought it maybe didn't really fit this thread because it was a musical, set in Chicago, with (-dodgy) American accents, etc. So, I dunno...
A great film though. I've fond memories of seeing it as a kid; they showed it to us one Christmas ('77/'78?) in junior school, on a rickety reel-to-reel projector that kept breaking down...
I hate musicals, but Bugsy Malone is the exception.
True. I considered mentioning it too, but then I thought it maybe didn't really fit this thread because it was a musical, set in Chicago, with (-dodgy) American accents, etc. So, I dunno...
A great film though. I've fond memories of seeing it as a kid; they showed it to us one Christmas ('77/'78?) in junior school, on a rickety reel-to-reel projector that kept breaking down...
I hate musicals, but Bugsy Malone is the exception.
What. You hate Cabaret?
What. You hate Cabaret?
I've got the standard objections to musicals: I just find it almost impossible to bear when characters break out in song, apropos of nothing. And all that fucking 'spontaneous' synchronized dancing...
Actually, I've just remembered Dancer In The Dark. A musical, with a-singing 'n' a-dancing... -and I ...er... liked it.
(-Aaaanyway... this is all kind of derailing the OP. Apologies.)
Numbers
an ting!
Gangster No.1
"One day I'll catch up with you. You want a war? I'll give you a fucking war one arm tied behind me back. I'll shoot you - blow you to kingdom come. They'll need a dustpan and brush to scrape you off the walls. Make mincemeat out of ya. Pie and mash, puddles of blood. I'll leave you lying there. Go rot, the lot of you. Calling me a cunt?"
"One day I'll catch up with you. You want a war? I'll give you a fucking war one arm tied behind me back. I'll shoot you - blow you to kingdom come. They'll need a dustpan and brush to scrape you off the walls. Make mincemeat out of ya. Pie and mash, puddles of blood. I'll leave you lying there. Go rot, the lot of you. Calling me a cunt?"
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
The Hit - early 80s film with Terrance Stamp playing a criminal turned grass whose been living out in Spain for years. Now the gangster he got locked up has sent over John Hurt and Tim Roth to deliver retirbution. Its like a gangster road movie with the three of them plus a women hostage driving and driving through the heat accross Spain. Its great - especially Tim Roth in football hooligan mode taking on the unfortunate locals in a bar.
Voley
🐀
That sounds good. Great cast.
Good call.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
I have a confession to make; I do carry a torch for Danny Dyer and Jason Statham and Tamer Hussan. Whilst they are all actors of limited range, when they nudge up against the boundaries of what they are best known for, they do seem to rustle up a few surprises. I do feel a little troubled by the creative partnerships they find themselves in, especially when it comes to their mentors' characterisation (or otherwise) of women - Guy Ritchie and Nick Love neither seem that progressive or enlightened if their screen work is anything to go by. Yet I still find myself drawn to films that without those actors in them I would normally be repulsed by.
Love's Goodbye Charlie Bright is stretching the idea of 'gangsters' a little thin, but it is essentially about gangs and tribes, albeit ones at the tamer end of the scale. It's about a small band of friends on a council estate, with Dyer as a peripheral figure. It doesn't really have much to say, but it is halfways articulate about it - friendship, growing up, the crossroads of life and all that. Ultimately the film rejects gangsterism. On the other hand, Dyer's more recent effort, Straightheads is a short and unpleasant film about gang mentality as seen from the victim's perspective. It drifts into exploitation revenge thriller, but it starts strong. It's written and directed by documentarist Dan Reed, who also husbanded Shooters, which I mentioned yesterday.
The Business is a nice little Costa del Crime morality play by Love, with Dyer a wide-eyed young go-getter attracted by the pretty women, fast cars and drug money. Tamer Hassan is very likable in it too. And there's unpleasantness along the way. It reminds my of a less pretentious Jake Arnott story, blending together many real life events and characters into one tidy plot-driven tall tale (see The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers). You could say similar things of the recent Jason Statham heist flick The Bank Job, though it gets far too muddled halfway into the picture, and the brio soon wears thin.
Sticking with the Dyer/Hassan/Love axis, there's - if we extend the gangster remit to include organised football violence - The Football Factory. Again, it's all about boys and their balls, but it does at least acknowledge the innate misogyny of it all from the beginning, unlike the glossier and far more contemptible Green Street. And it has Frank Harper in it. Frank Harper, you may remember, was one of the few truly excellent things in South West Nine.
Keeping with the hooligan trope, we might wander through The Firm by Alan Clarke and ID. Phil Davis featured in the former as blond yuppie yob Yeti; the latter was directed by him. Broadening our parameters, we might even consider Clarkie's other work: the virtually dialogue-free Elephant is a meditation on tribal violence in Northern Ireland in which context and justification is completely removed, political struggle of all flavours reduced to nothing more than unrelenting, unsexy, unclear moments of sudden brutality. And of course the borstal portrayed in Scum is an institution riddled from the top down with gangs, young and old, in authority and beyond it.
Bringing things more firmly back into the organised crime fold, we return to Phil Davis, who is an old-fashioned British hoodlum in the Antonia Bird-Ronan Bennett blagger mystery Face. This film shares its half glossy, half gritty tone with ID; both are rooted in kitchen sink drama and polemical film making, and yet both also try and up the adrenal ante. This approach was supplanted by the late nineties by the balls-out, day-glo sadism perpetuated by Guy Ritchie, and helped give us Layer Cake, a fast-moving movie about the shift in the British underworld from high risk/low yield armed robbery into the money machine that is drugs trafficking. Again, women are low down the filmmakers' priorities; again, second string characters are relegated to two-dimensional ciphers or humorous turns; again Tamer Hassan has little to do but does it well. Still, it provided Daniel Craig with his calling card for Eon, and older character actors like George Harris, Colm Meaney, Kenneth Cranham and Michael Gambon are all given a chance to shine.
(Talking of Gambon, and returning to the Elephantine idea of Northern Irish political gangsterism, he was excellent as a Loyalist godfather in the mid-seventies ceasefire set Nothing Personal.)
Love's Goodbye Charlie Bright is stretching the idea of 'gangsters' a little thin, but it is essentially about gangs and tribes, albeit ones at the tamer end of the scale. It's about a small band of friends on a council estate, with Dyer as a peripheral figure. It doesn't really have much to say, but it is halfways articulate about it - friendship, growing up, the crossroads of life and all that. Ultimately the film rejects gangsterism. On the other hand, Dyer's more recent effort, Straightheads is a short and unpleasant film about gang mentality as seen from the victim's perspective. It drifts into exploitation revenge thriller, but it starts strong. It's written and directed by documentarist Dan Reed, who also husbanded Shooters, which I mentioned yesterday.
The Business is a nice little Costa del Crime morality play by Love, with Dyer a wide-eyed young go-getter attracted by the pretty women, fast cars and drug money. Tamer Hassan is very likable in it too. And there's unpleasantness along the way. It reminds my of a less pretentious Jake Arnott story, blending together many real life events and characters into one tidy plot-driven tall tale (see The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers). You could say similar things of the recent Jason Statham heist flick The Bank Job, though it gets far too muddled halfway into the picture, and the brio soon wears thin.
Sticking with the Dyer/Hassan/Love axis, there's - if we extend the gangster remit to include organised football violence - The Football Factory. Again, it's all about boys and their balls, but it does at least acknowledge the innate misogyny of it all from the beginning, unlike the glossier and far more contemptible Green Street. And it has Frank Harper in it. Frank Harper, you may remember, was one of the few truly excellent things in South West Nine.
Keeping with the hooligan trope, we might wander through The Firm by Alan Clarke and ID. Phil Davis featured in the former as blond yuppie yob Yeti; the latter was directed by him. Broadening our parameters, we might even consider Clarkie's other work: the virtually dialogue-free Elephant is a meditation on tribal violence in Northern Ireland in which context and justification is completely removed, political struggle of all flavours reduced to nothing more than unrelenting, unsexy, unclear moments of sudden brutality. And of course the borstal portrayed in Scum is an institution riddled from the top down with gangs, young and old, in authority and beyond it.
Bringing things more firmly back into the organised crime fold, we return to Phil Davis, who is an old-fashioned British hoodlum in the Antonia Bird-Ronan Bennett blagger mystery Face. This film shares its half glossy, half gritty tone with ID; both are rooted in kitchen sink drama and polemical film making, and yet both also try and up the adrenal ante. This approach was supplanted by the late nineties by the balls-out, day-glo sadism perpetuated by Guy Ritchie, and helped give us Layer Cake, a fast-moving movie about the shift in the British underworld from high risk/low yield armed robbery into the money machine that is drugs trafficking. Again, women are low down the filmmakers' priorities; again, second string characters are relegated to two-dimensional ciphers or humorous turns; again Tamer Hassan has little to do but does it well. Still, it provided Daniel Craig with his calling card for Eon, and older character actors like George Harris, Colm Meaney, Kenneth Cranham and Michael Gambon are all given a chance to shine.
(Talking of Gambon, and returning to the Elephantine idea of Northern Irish political gangsterism, he was excellent as a Loyalist godfather in the mid-seventies ceasefire set Nothing Personal.)
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Whilst we're on the subject of craggy faced veterans like Stamp (The Hit) and McDowell (Gangster Number 1), consider also The Limey and TV serial Our Friends In The North. In the former Stamp is an old age gangster come to California to find out what happened to - and avenge - his daughter (shades of Jack Carter). In the latter, McDowell steals the sixties London scenes with his porn baron Benny.
Gingerman
Is a great bunch of lads.....
Ive seen it,its pretty awful actually was filmed in Co.Wicklow,Brosnan and Doody are way too glamorous to convince,only watched it because Im from that part or Ireland meself.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
alsoknownas
some bloke
My two faves: Performance, and Sexy Beast.
Louloubelle
Well-Known Member
My favourites are
Brighton Rock
The Long Good Friday
Get Carter
I also really enjoyed The Italian Job. Quintessentially British although much of the film is located in Italy, it's one of those enjoyable Sunday afternoon films with lots of excellent character actors. Talking of character actors I just love The Ladykillers (the originals of both films of course)
Brighton Rock
The Long Good Friday
Get Carter
I also really enjoyed The Italian Job. Quintessentially British although much of the film is located in Italy, it's one of those enjoyable Sunday afternoon films with lots of excellent character actors. Talking of character actors I just love The Ladykillers (the originals of both films of course)
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
Gangster No.1
"One day I'll catch up with you. You want a war? I'll give you a fucking war one arm tied behind me back. I'll shoot you - blow you to kingdom come. They'll need a dustpan and brush to scrape you off the walls. Make mincemeat out of ya. Pie and mash, puddles of blood. I'll leave you lying there. Go rot, the lot of you. Calling me a cunt?"
About time someone mentioned this superb film!
I love(d) this series. Ambitiously panoramic storytelling, and yeah, the storyline of Geordie's entanglement in the Soho underworld is good stuff.
Gangster No.1
"One day I'll catch up with you. You want a war? I'll give you a fucking war one arm tied behind me back. I'll shoot you - blow you to kingdom come. They'll need a dustpan and brush to scrape you off the walls. Make mincemeat out of ya. Pie and mash, puddles of blood. I'll leave you lying there. Go rot, the lot of you. Calling me a cunt?"
Yeah that wasn't a bad film and Paul Bettany showed some real promise in it. Not seen him do anything half as interesting since though.
Did also have some slightly dodge moments, but over all it was better than your average Ritchie-fest...
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
It came out at the wrong time, that's the thing - I never watched it because I've always thought "oh just another fucking bandwagon gangster film". Since then I've heard more than a few people say it's good.
Voley
🐀
The cover doesn't help.
It's got that 'right-cockney-barrel-of-old-monkeys' feel about it. Probably trying to cash in.
Going on what others have said, I wouldn't mind seeing it now, though.
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
I love 'Mona Lisa' - Bob Hoskins, Prostitution, A white Rabbit, Sir Michael, Joe Brown, a decent motor, ornamental spaghetti, Robbie Coltrane, great London and Brighton locations, midgets, maniacs and a scathing Cathy Tyson in a top notch performance.
It's a bit sentimental in places, but a great watch.
Get Carter is my favourite, and I really enjoy the Limey too.
It's a bit sentimental in places, but a great watch.
Get Carter is my favourite, and I really enjoy the Limey too.
Oh no, its well worth a watch. Bettany is truly scary. His gangster boss is perhaps a bit camp (and the rival gangster boss is definately very camp...) but it has an engaging story line. Not quite as good as sexy beast and never destined to be thought of as a true classic, but check it out.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
double post
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
The only one I've seen is Love, Honor, and Obey which is perhaps the worst piece of shit ever recorded on film. Plot? What plot?
I saw the Stallone remake of Get Carter and thought it almost unwatchable.
I saw the Stallone remake of Get Carter and thought it almost unwatchable.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
It wasn't that brutal, after all, he did explain why, in a roundabout kind of way...
"I was good to you, even when you was aht of order!!"
I mean, he'd let his boss down, what did he expect, a pat on the back?
Upsetting the IRA to the point where they wiped out his firm one by one and managed to scare the US Mafia away was a pretty bad career move for him, yes.
Now, we all know that one of the IRA assassins was a certain Pierce Brosnan (his first major film role, IIRC) but his killing partner is also a distinguished stage and screen actor.
For the grand prize of my calling you a total anorak and allowing you to join the Order Of The Smug Bastard (an internet-based society for those devoted to obscure facts) what was his name?
Clue - He had a starring role in the historical drama series 'Sharpe' starring Sean Bean.
So did everyone else.
Although I did like Rachel Leigh Cook in that film, hubba hubba.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
If anyone think the bottling scene is brutal, may I refer them to the scene at the end of 'Casino' involving the blokes with baseball bats?
Now that's brutal, by any standards.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
I was having another think about this, and remebered that he is also in Essex Boys, which is not a great British gangster film, but which had potential. It's about the Rettenden triple murder, and stars Sean Bean and Charlie Creed-Miles. Alex Kingston is there too. What could have been an intense and dark look at the Range Rover slayings and the Essex ecstacy trade (Leah Betts, Raquel's and all that) quickly descends into a dull melodrama focused around romantic subplots.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
Here's the baseball bat scene in all its (thoroughly unpleasant and really quite nauseating) glory.
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