Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Let's be realistic.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This movie has bigger holes than the gangsters' wenches' ones. And I use the term "gangsters" very loosely. The guys in this movie are thicker than a doorstop sandwich!!!

I'm reviewing the US version which was re-cut for release here. Unfortunately I have no idea what they did to the movie.The Germans have a great word called 'verschlimmbessern', which means making something not very good worse, by attempting to make it better.Maybe that's what they did, given that a couple of Brit viewers really liked the movie.The one nod to the Yanks I noticed was that at some point Micky Mannock (Frank Harper) says to his cousin/partner in crime that he can now go and "join his uptown friends." Uptown? All the years I lived in London I never came across an 'uptown.' Looks like I missed out on something really worth going to.As for the movie itself: a vanity project for Frank Harper who co-wrote, directed and starred in it. That's a hard thing to pull off without coming over like a complete prat, and I can only think of Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin pulling this off successfully. And Frank Harper isn't a good enough writer or director to match them.The plot is beyond tired and I couldn't care less for any of the lead characters who have no redeeming features whatsoever, and I wouldn't have minded all of them being killed off in the most boringly predictive final shootout.Charles Dance is the only one who comes out of this reasonably well as the gangster with all his fingers in the pot, and understanding how the business really works.My nomination for most likable character is for the unseen taxi driver who drives the kids and wife off to safety.

I nominate this film for worst voice-over narration of all time. Director/star Frank Harper sounds like he has been forced to read out the phone book in its entirety. Talk about sleepwalking through a project, and it's his own bleeding film, guvnor. Now, Harper is no Danny Dyer, he more than looks the part when playing the London hard man and has been used to good effect by directors like Nick Love and Shane Meadows. Unfortunately, here he's directing himself in the sort of vanity project that would only get funded by the British film industry. He's recruited a veritable who's who of crap gangster and football hooligan films for St George's Day. And Keeley Hazell who gives one of the worst performances ever committed to celluloid. This truly awful effort takes you into a world of Peckham melts, ageing hooligans who keep going on about the war even though they've never been near one, uncharismatic, perma-tanned villains with a hard on for Churchill and cretinous hanger ons, just there to keep the idiotic plot ticking along. What do you mean, no thanks mate! This film is awesome in its crapness. It has no sense of its own absurdity, takes itself very seriously and is all the funnier for it. The only disappointment is that Danny Dyer doesn't turn up and glass a slag. Let's have a sequel please, set on Christmas Day!

I watched this on Sky. Why do I mention that? because I had not even heard of this film until it appeared on the on demand section. This is not always a bad thing as we all now how some indie films can pass under the radar but more often than not this can set the alarm bells ringingwhere do I start?- as one other reviewer mentions it has a monotone narration and the characters are on dimensional at best. the film manages to contain a ridiculous amount of London gangster film clichés with a weak plot.this film lacks the wit of a Guy Ritchie film or any of the gritty realism of the Long Good Friday or Get Carter. I really struggle to see how this film got made- i persisted in watching thinking that maybe it would get better ( surely it can't be this bad??) but it didn't.Avoid