Top ten British gangster movies
By Jane Burnside
The trend for British gangster movies shows no signs of abating, with Layer Cake's tales of drugs, villains and shooters just the latest in a long line of similar flicks. We take a look at ten of the best...
Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels has got a bleeding lot to answer for, with thesps knifing, glassing and shooting each other on a daily basis all over the London Metropolitan area following its release. Riding on the back of Guy Ritchie's homespun success, film sets populated by villains rapidly grew in number - Escoïtus Boys, Diamonds (the Lock Stock follow-up), Love, Honour and Obey, Honest and Sexy Beast, to name a few - were subsequently shot on the capital's streets. But let's face it, while the film is slick and funny, Nick Moran, Vinnie Jones and crew are about as cold, calculating and convincing a bunch of crims as you might find in... well, an East End absinthe bar on a Friday night. If you're going to jump on the bandwagon, it's important to turn to the right type of geezers for inspiration.
Brighton Rock
A dark, moody film noir permeated by the "tang of fish and chips," this is one of the finest British gangster films you'll see - and one of the earliest. Brighton Rock (the screen adaptation of Graham Greene's excellent novel) is notable for bringing a new vicious realism to British crime cinema. Richard Attenborough turns in a superlative performance as Pinkie Brown, who at the tender age of just 17 is a cunning, sadistic, introspective gangster. Pinkie decides to "remove" a journalist and sends the unfortunate Kolley Kibber on a flight of terror that ends in a grisly manner at a funfair. Panic-stricken, Kibber leaps onto a ghost train - but as it dashes into a tunnel he recognises his travelling companion as none other than Pinkie. Kibber's body is found washed up on the beach some hours later. No one escapes Pinkie's callous evil - he marries his young wife only to prevent her from giving the police evidence about a crime she witnessed, and in his final moments he is scheming to commit the ultimate act of silencing her. Many of the most gruesome scenes are set incongruously at racecourses and funfairs, making for nauseating brutality. Shot through with self-loathing and Roman Catholic guilt, this film has real potency.
Get Carter
"You're a big man, but you're out of shape. For me, it's a full-time job. Now behave." Vintage Michael Caine. London might have been swinging at this time, but so were knives and clubs, with Pakistani dissidents shot dead at the Indian High Commission, and machine-gun attacks on Middle Eastern embassies. As the violence grew more perceptible, the London of the Kray Twins began to naturally spawn film anti-heroes. Caine gives an outstanding performance as Carter, a brutal London gangster travelling off his patch to Newcastle to discover the unpleasant truth behind his brother's suspicious death. Carter is shown with his nose in Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, in an early post-modern nod. But this is where novel and film part company. Carter is no Marlowe, and shows no sympathy or humanity to any baddie or, indeed, anybody. He knifes one man in the heart, pushes another off a multi-storey car park, sends a third out to sea in a shale-truck dumper, shoots a fourth in a ferry-boat ambush, and drowns one girl by accident and another on purpose. We rest our case.
Villain
This movie opened within weeks of Get Carter and starred another big name of the time, Richard Burton. Often considered a poor relation to the Caine vehicle, it's an underrated gangster film of gritty 1970s locations and the usual formula: the planning and execution of a robbery, a torture scene and blackmail. In a barely disguised portrait of Ronnie Kray, Richard Burton is cast as Vic Dakin, the sadistic, gay East End villain with a mother fixation, while Ian McShane appears as his lover, desperate to escape. Result? A Boy's Own delight featuring a brilliant car chase during a violent wages snatch - who said the British couldn't cut the mustard in road rampages? - and even a hospital kidnap. Donald Sinden is brilliant as the sleazy, blackmailed MP who frequents high society coïtus parties. The film has a good British cast (watch out for a scene-stealing Nigel Davenport as the police officer in charge). Dismiss this as a potboiler at your peril.
The Long Good Friday
The gritty thriller that launched Bob Hoskins' career shows the half-pint hard man in the role of an East End gangland boss whose prophetic plans to rejuvenate the Docklands area of London are being threatened. A British cinematic first, this film was gutsy enough to tackle our cousins across the Pond at a genre they had made their own, and is fascinating for the culture gaps it opens. Never before had the London underworld been laid bare in such a contemporary way. Hoskins gives a growly, charismatic performance as the kingpin brought low by phantom forces over the course of an Easter weekend, memorably treating his opponents with the single-minded, brutal violence he feels they deserve, smashing whiskey bottles over the skulls of those who betray him, cutting, beating, slicing and hanging them up (the meat hook scene is abattoir magic) and generally lending weight to the argument for more careers advice for school-leavers - this young man was deprived of a glittering career in the butchery department.
The Lavender Hill Mob
For those who like their gangsters smelling a little sweeter than the rest of this pungent bunch, try a whiff of this Ealing gem from the golden age of British comedy. OK, so it's a comedy, but that doesn't mean it can't offer insight into the gangster milieu of the time. An extremely young Alec Guinness, playing a mousey bank clerk, teams up with Stanley Holloway and a fairly young Sid James, to steal three million pounds in gold bullion and smuggle it out of London disguised as souvenir statues of the Eiffel Tower. Aside from the inspired storyline, this priceless piece of Brit cinema stands out for its excellent exposition of petty criminals, their foibles and how they relate to one another. And for those of you who need any further encouragement to see it, there's a flash of a very young Audrey Hepburn in the opening scene in Rio.
The Krays
Most, if not all, of the current crop of movies will have turned to these infamous siblings of sadism as their models for East End skull-thuggery. Ronnie and Reggie Kray - the most influential and dangerous gangsters to ever emerge from London - are the subject of this gritty biopic that shies away from Sweeney-style drama to present the savage reality of the Krays' world. The ingenious casting of Spandau Ballet brothers Martin and Gary Kemp (bona fide Eastenders themselves) as the brothers-in-crime is pivotal to the success of the movie. Director Peter Medak opts not to make a catalogue of stabbings, garrotings and bloodletting, but explores the twisted mentality and the psychic connection between the twins to eerie effect. Throw in a rabid Steven Berkoff as rival gang lord George Cornell, and you've got a chilling glimpse into a world that may well be lying dormant instead of extinct...
Face
Putting the Brit crime flick back on the map, Antonia Bird's vision of the contemporary London underworld combines the gangland atmosphere of The Long Good Friday with Tarantino style. No mere "heist-gone-wrong" movie, it's a sortie into the aggressive, brutal lives of the criminal underclass. Ray (Robert Carlyle) is a "face", a known criminal on the cops' usual suspects list. He and his mate Dave put together a team for a heist promising a catch of upwards of two million quid. But when the cash falls seriously short of the jackpot, it becomes obvious that there's a traitor in the group, forcing Ray to confront his past, flush out the killer and track down the missing loot back to the local nick. As the film traces the impact of the bungled job and the group tensions that evolve as a result, the Reservoir Dogs influence is strongly apparent. Bird forces us to stay with these hard men until we can identify every scar under the balaclava - not a pretty sight.
Reservoir Dogs
This is not a British film, but actor Tim Roth provides a fine excuse to mention the most significant gangster movie of the last decade, for his role as the fatally wounded policeman Mr Orange. Brazenly stealing ideas from Scorsese, Kubrick and Woo to name just a few, Tarantino has the final word on the "heist-gone-wrong" genre. High-voltage, intelligent, violent - be honest, you didn't believe he'd show the torturous ear scene in all its gory glory? - funny, dark, non-chronological, unique; this movie not only made Tarantino, but put our boy Roth on the Hollywood map too.
Sexy Beast
Ben Kingsley steals every scene he enters as the deranged, psychotic and downright terrifying gangster Don Logan, whose vituperative campaign of intimidation against Gary Dove (Ray Winstone) makes for uneasy but frequently hilarious viewing. Most disturbing of all - Kingsley claims the character was based upon his own grandmother. Able support from the likes of Ian McShane (who's since kept up the bad-guy image with TV series Deadwood), Amanda Redman and James Fox ensures there isn't a single weak link in this critically-acclaimed and stylish gangster flick.
