Not disagreeing with critique of the Old Gangster part, at least it resolves quickly. With out the nostaglic sets and Bettany, the film does lose a lot of life. I wonder if they could have got the film made if McDowell’s name was not attached.
And, I’m not arguing that the film is a rollercoaster of plot twists and surprise reveals. I’d recommend Jasper check out Bad Education for that kinda action. I know the English subtitles work on that bad boy. It is (G#1) an unsentimental, unsympathetic character study of thug. Its right there in the title. And for all that its an entertaining movie (IMO 'natch).
It is what it is. I object to not liking the movie for what it is not.
Speaking of Clive Owen, has anyone seen “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”? Sort of the same setting, and sort of the same principles - McDowell seems to even be playing the same part, Jamie Foreman. Same guy that directed Croupier, but it is a very very very dull movie. Lots of plot though.
Okay, I guess I’d better be more specific. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and RockNRolla are great fun. (In descending order of quality.)
Hah! At least I got that part wrong. Yet I still can’t be bothered to watch the rest of it, nor buy the wonky belief that you have to watch the entire movie to have any idea whether it’s good. Somehow I bet the remainder is every bit as aimless as the first part – seriously, are you trying to tell me the second half is somehow dramatically different in style and tone, or suddenly grows a plot?
And Once Upon a Time and *Godfather(s) are muther humping Epics. G#1 is much smaller in scope, budget and more focused. The story is simple, but not simplistic.
Regardless. My point was they prove you can have style, acting, character development – and still have a plot.
What it is, is a very watchable movie with more than a few unique moments.
Fair enough, no harm in us each having our own taste in movies. I know there are tons of movies I enjoy that most other people probably don’t dig.
Oh, and one last thing.
He pissed into the urinal, and it splashed into his champaign glass – it got onto his shoes too, which were closer to the splash.
Even though the final Ganster/Mayes scene was not on par with Bettany’s restraint, I liked that when he realizes he can’t make a cup of tea like a civilized social person it all comes crashing down. He has messed up this big moment he has fantasized about and now Freddie will never want to be like him. Not ever.
Also, the reel to reel machines are still on the shelves. Thirty years later.
The only time I really felt pulled out of the movie was the entrance to the Lenny scene, he kicked in a door in an upscale building, shot a man, cranked the hi-fi and then spends the next hour undressing and torturing a guy. With the door still kicked in? I know it’s just a movie, but with so many other details that felt right it just got under my skin.
Rock on, but its a jagoff move to do in a thread where some folks are at least attempting a serious discussion.
Ah, there is lots of plot, it just all happens to Freddie. Freddie rises, falls in love, is betrayed and framed for a murder he did not commit. He grows during his long imprisonment and finds redemption in true love. In the end, he has a surprise reveal of who his true enemy was all this time. He passes his final test when he declines to kill Gangster.
We’ve all seen variations on that theme a couple of hundred times.
G#1 is Iago’s story, not Hamlet’s. Its a traditional revenge story turned on its head. The movie expects the audience be mature enough to know Freddie’s story, to sympathize with Freddie’s point of view without having have their hands held. This is the bad guy’s POV.
The whole of the movie, the VOs, the forth wall nods to audience, the exaggerated and sometimes grotesque camera tricks, they are all how Gangster perceives the world. He, like Iago, tells the audience what he is doing and why, because he really expects the audience to sympathize with him. Which the audience does, for a while. Vicariously, you get to wear the nice clothes, have great parties, roll with a fat crew, drive nice cars, be actually good and valued at what you do (in this case, be a ruthless thug). And then the movie and Gangster throw the audience by giving them a glance into his psyche. He is a screaming skull of violence, hate and ambition.
He kills the unsuspecting Roland with a weird racist flair. The audience knows he has done it, even though we never see Roland actually struck. And now we are forced into poor Eddie’s shoes. He knows what is going on, again, the movie doesn’t hold the audience’s hand, a shot of Gangster sitting quietly next to him is all the explanation needed to as to why Eddie doesn’t tell Freddie what he knows.
Next, we watch the assault on Freddie and Karen from Gangster’s point of view. The violence is terrible, but it is fairly remote, most of it seen through Gangster’s rearview mirror from across the street. Though Karen getting her throat cut is a closer camera angle - Freddie’s POV - it’s important for the audience to see, because we know Gangster caused that to happen, and the rest of Freddie’s story is shaped by it. That, in the end, he doesn’t kill the man who essentially caused it, shows how far he has risen above Gangster by the end of the movie.
And then we forced into the worst point of view of all, Lenny’s. We experience, horrifically, what it is like to be Gangster’s victim. After that ordeal any sympathy or vicarious thrill is gone from the audience. When Gangster’s triumphant montage runs, you can’t help but notice that his gang devolves around him, becoming more boorish, violent and drug addicted with every passing year.
I noticed the reel to reel too, I doubt Gangster has much use for music, other than to murder by. It was a nice touch to show what an empty shell he is.
I noticed that too - “Uh, don’t mind the horrible screams and breaking of glass, or the very loud music, or the guy in his tighty whities covered in blood.” Shut the door at least Gangster.
I wonder if that was an oversight, like they filmed a bunch of that sequence before they realized the door was wide open and they had to just go with it.
I’ll be in the camp that found the last act something of a let-down after the build-up previous. Part of that was finding the movie a bit too stylized at the beginning, but then it pretty much had me at “sounds like there’s a puncture somewhere on your side.”
And that staccato chant-narration as he’s moving towards the Lenny kill, and that whole sequence, lordy.
One of my favorite little moments was right after Karen spits in his face, and there’s a few beats, then her face slides into a perfect what-the-fuck-did-I-just-do? expression when instead of escalating he simply slides back into the shark smile.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Thank you. I sat down tonight with a big bowl of peas, onions, and ketchup (yum) to watch. The beginning reminded me of Reservoir Dogs and Guy Ritchie’s work, but these first impressions were totally wrong, and the film had a unique character to it that effectively showed the derailing of a person.
Disagree. The Bettany parts just build up to McDowell’s finish. What a powerful display of angst. Gangster achieved what he thought was his goal, but envies Mays’s inner peace. And woman.
I don’t know what makes McDowell so good at playing maniacs, but I’m glad he does it. Bettany did a great job, of course, but I felt like maybe he was almost cast to remind people of a younger McDowell.
Some of the things Gangster did didn’t make much sense to me (like killing Roland; I didn’t get the sense that he planned it as part of a scheme, but rather it felt more like he did it out of frustration with the dude’s accent), but hey, he’s C-R-A-A-A-Z-Y! I, too, loved the scene with Karen where she realizes she probably made a mistake spitting in this guy’s face.
Or John Travolta, like he did in Get Shorty and the… shudder… sequel.
Is it Strainer? I heard “straightener.” I’d like this cleared up, possibly by vote, because I was looking forward to using this particular bit of slang at some point also.
Die.
The only thing this film did badly was the aging of Saffron Burrows. Heh.
It’s a descent driven by lust. Lust for the life, the shoes, the suits. By the half-way mark, he’s already planning on how he’s going to take over (remember the scene where he sees his elder self sitting on the couch?).
What struck me more than anything was that for him, time didn’t pass. 30 years and it’s the same apartment, same couch, same wall-paper for crying out loud.
I didn’t listen to the director’s commentary, but in my own imagination, Lenny was a goal nd when Lenny wasn’t there, he didn’t have a goal anymore. It’s like he needed someone ahead of him for him to continue to desire.
The ending was not the ending it could have been… after all the buildup and the history, the rapid fire recollection of 30 years, it all comes down to him wanting Lenny to kill him? There just wasn’t any connecting the dots. Even when you go back to the beginning, when he’s at the fight, there was no real crazy there. In fact, when he does break the 4th wall, it’s like he’s totally in control.
Overall, I give the film a thumbs up…the first 4/5 is just so good with the 60’s vibe, the gangster lifestyle, the protege climbing the ranks, the music (oh man the music was awesome), it’s just a shame it couldn’t find an ending that fit the rest of the story.
There’s two movies here. One I really liked and one I came to loathe.
-The one I really liked was the one with Eddie Marsan in it. That scene between him and Paul Bettany is seriously worth the price of admission. Eddie Marsan freaking rocks. I love that guy. He’s like a British Paul Giamatti, but with more horsepower.
I liked that movie. I liked its structural shifts. The bit in the first bar scene with Lenny where his fate (and that of his henchman) are hinted at in splintered images is great. Yes, the guy playing Lenny is terrible (he watched Jon Polito in Miller’s Crossing and figured he’d just try to do that, I guess), but the scene has style and introduces the whole “look at me” thing that plays off so beautifully with Eddie.
“Eddie…poor little Eddie.”
-The one I came to loathe stars Malcolm McDowell and features his utterly painful voice over. I love him, but his narration in this film is terrible. This may not be his fault. The writing for the narration is knickers-in-your-cornflakes bad. Maybe it’s a structural problem. No matter. Whenever his narration crops up I get annoyed. Unfortunately for the film, this is often.
I’m getting tired of films thinking they are Goodfellas. Note to future films: “You’re not.”
Sadly the film is scuttled by the imbalance of McDowell’s doublecasting. Every other character is played by the same actor aged by makeup as the character ages. Except for the main character. For some reason we have to have this gimmick with Malcolm McDowell. Why? Paul Bettany is great. Subbing in McDowell just makes the age makeup on the others look stupid and makes him look stupid since he’s clearly playing a different character than Paul Bettany (breaking the fourth wall in that idiotic bathroom scene doesn’t help).
And what the fuck is up with all that King Lear bullshit in the final scene with David Thewlis? What a mess.
There’s a good film in here. A film about something very specific. Covetousness. Sadly it was directed by someone without enough restraint.
Thanks to BlueJack for suggesting it, though. I loved that Eddie scene. Loved it.
-xtien
“I have never understood one fucking word you’ve ever said to me.”
Eddie Marsan kills in G#1. The scene between he and McDowell isn’t as good as the Bettany encounter, but Marsan is able to pull off the same kind of pathos when he asks McDowell why he didn’t kill him years ago.
You can tell when he sees Gangster after all these years he thinks this is it. And you can tell he thinks that every time he sees Gangster. Its ruined his life.
He is destined to be a “that guy” for me for the rest of his career. Hey! There’s “that guy”! I love him!
Oh, duuuuuuude. If you like Eddie Marsan at all you’ve got to see it. Seriously.
I shied away from it for awhile because I assumed because of its title it would be cloying and annoying (forgive the rhyme). It isn’t. The performances are superb and Eddie Marsan in particular is a knockout. Especially after what he does in films like Vera Drake and Gangster No. 1. Man does this guy have an engine.
Wow, I can’t believe I missed this movie. As I’m watching it, my reaction was: “Ah, this is why people were all ga-ga about Paul Bettany.” I’d never understood why he was such a big deal. Now I see. It almost makes me want to see the Tom Hanks movie where he plays a killer albino monk. Almost.
I loved the erotic overtones of the scene in the car when David Thewliss gives him the tie pin. At that point, I was almost wondering if this was going to end up being a gay movie. Then we get to the nightclub with Saffron Burrows and I’m all, “Ah-ha, this is going to be a gay movie!” But the utter asexuality of Paul Bettany’s character was part of what made him so chilling.
Great use of brutality. Early on, David Thewliss hits a dude on the head with a glass. Whatever, movie. You think that impresses me? Pfft. But, oh boy, little did I know… The scene of Lenny’s murder was a rare bit of movie work. That and Bettany’s silent screams were the stuff of great horror movies. And to the movie’s credit, they didn’t seem out of place. It earned them.
Unlike some of you, I really like the disconnect between Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell. Early on, he’s young and sleek and feral. He’s almost an idealized version of a gangster. But once he doesn’t have anything to covet, once the object of his lust is gone and he’s attained everything he wants and still isn’t content, he becomes a broken down, well, almost a clown.
I might be rationalizing the fact that McDowell is too old and soft to capture what Bettany was doing (and what he, McDowell, was once capable of doing in Clockwork Orange). But it made perfect sense in the context of the movie, according to the internal fiction: here is a bitter, disillusioned, old nutter recalling his glory days. Everything we see is in Malcolm McDowell’s head, from his own memory. Was he truly such a cold-blooded, ruthless, fearsome killer always three steps ahead of everyone else? Or did he happen to be the guy in place to take over when Freddie Mays is taken out? The truth doesn’t matter, because we’re not meant to know. This is not a story the audience sees as an omniscient narrator. This is the gangster’s recollection now that he’s old and soft and confused by the fact that he’s still unsatisfied.
In other words, the audience never sees the young gangster. We only see the old gangster’s recollection of the young gangster. We’re watching Malcolm McDowell recalling himself as Paul Bettany. We’re seeing a man remembering how absolutely bad ass he was, how he was on the verge of taking over the world, how he became Superman and King Kong. And we know that’s not how he ended up. He ended up an old dude stripped down to his underwear again and freaking out and not quite understanding why.
Excellent pick, Blue, and I’ve really liked you’re comments here. This is what makes Movie Club rock: get a dude to recommend a movie he likes and then get him to talk about it with the rest of us.
Also, see Happy-Go-Lucky if you’ve haven’t gotten around to it! I was grinning ear to ear the moment Eddie Marsan showed up. His scenes with Sally Hawkins are absolute treasures.
-Tom
P.S. Anyone see Bronson, the last movie from Nicolas Winding Refn? There are some interesting points of similarity to Gangster No. 1.
