British Gangster movies

[eamon angelface]

I hear a lot of English people complain that all England makes anymore are gangster movies.

I guess we don't get a lot of them over here?

I really like the ones I've seen like Sexy Beast, The Krays, Layer Cake, and of course Snatch and Lock Stock. What are some really good ones I might have missed? I also liked The Business but I like Nick Love as a person so that makes me biased.

Any suggestions?

[efilflah]

The only three in your list that I personally think had decent pacing, and a watchable story, were Lock Stock, The Krays and Sexy Beast.

Snatch was dull as dishwater, The Business I couldn't even get through because it was so poorly constructed, Layer Cake seemed to just float by with nothing much of interest happening throughout the whole movie.

I think Pacing is the key to any movie being watchable, even a bad one, and whereas the acting in Lock Stock was terrible, the pacing of events was perfectly timed so that you don't lose interest.

I can't say I know of many other British Gangster movies except a few oldies like Get Carter (classic), and some other ones with Bob Hoskins that I always forget the names of.

[eamon angelface]

I forgot Gangster No 1.

That's a good one. I'm not sure if it's pure British but it's based in England.

Not sure I agree about Layer Cake lacking an engaging pace. I was drawn in pretty quick and felt it moved along with key plot accelerations when necessary. I'm of course partial to the genre as a whole.

I do wish people would lose the God damned voice overs and clever names like Tommy Two Hands and shit like that. Voice overs are painful. They kill 90% of the strife because suddenly the viewer has an escort through whatever world you're throwing them audience into.

anyway...no one else has any suggestions. oh well.

[AngelBaby]

I just saw Layer Cake for the first time a couple days ago, and I was impressed. It definitely had a different feel from the movies the director had produced previously (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch), and Daniel Craig was as good as advertised.

The very end totally took me by surprise, though. As did some twists leading up to it.

[eamon angelface]

Shooters is also another very good one.

Same approach as Kids but switch out spoiled NYC douchebags with real Liverpool badass gangsters. They did very good jobs as actors too.