mpanty
Keen Commander
My film review of Gangster no .1, Malcolm McDowell's latest movie, starring also known WC-actor Saffron Burrows...
The movie takes place in England in the late 1960's, McDowell tells the story of his young days, when he started to work for Gangster legend Freddie Mays, called "The Butcher of Mayfair".
It starts out pretty well, after a fairly long intro, we get to understand the movie is going to be about a wannabe gangster that dreams of occupying the number 1 spot... McDowell's high accent voice gets you into the universe straight away! The actor playing young McDowell (Paul Bettany, that you have perhaps seen as Chaucer in A Knight's Tale) is also incredible in his performance, a very expressive character...
Saffron Burrows plays a young dancer and singer that McDowell's boss (Mays, played by David Thewlis) falls in love into... and her acting moment is also very good, she's as pretty as ever...
So what's wrong with this movie? It is too slow-going, it gets you into the mind of this wannabe ganster more than anything else, someone that makes of his boss an idol, but who is at the same time persecuted by internal demons, making him a very dangerous individual...
The movie has a morale, but I don't know if most viewers can stomach the violence at a certain point in the film, something we can call a real butchery... necessary perhaps, to give credibility to McDowell's character, and to strengthen his demon haunted mind...
In essence, McDowell is brilliant, but IMHO it is mostly déjà-vu in low-quality... So pass...
If you'd like to know more, here are a couple of opinionated film reviews:
Iofilm
ChartAttack
Malcolm McDowell's Unofficial Site
The movie takes place in England in the late 1960's, McDowell tells the story of his young days, when he started to work for Gangster legend Freddie Mays, called "The Butcher of Mayfair".
It starts out pretty well, after a fairly long intro, we get to understand the movie is going to be about a wannabe gangster that dreams of occupying the number 1 spot... McDowell's high accent voice gets you into the universe straight away! The actor playing young McDowell (Paul Bettany, that you have perhaps seen as Chaucer in A Knight's Tale) is also incredible in his performance, a very expressive character...
Saffron Burrows plays a young dancer and singer that McDowell's boss (Mays, played by David Thewlis) falls in love into... and her acting moment is also very good, she's as pretty as ever...
So what's wrong with this movie? It is too slow-going, it gets you into the mind of this wannabe ganster more than anything else, someone that makes of his boss an idol, but who is at the same time persecuted by internal demons, making him a very dangerous individual...
The movie has a morale, but I don't know if most viewers can stomach the violence at a certain point in the film, something we can call a real butchery... necessary perhaps, to give credibility to McDowell's character, and to strengthen his demon haunted mind...
In essence, McDowell is brilliant, but IMHO it is mostly déjà-vu in low-quality... So pass...
If you'd like to know more, here are a couple of opinionated film reviews:
Iofilm
ChartAttack
Malcolm McDowell's Unofficial Site