Worth 8.1 stars? Not on your Nelly.

Rating: 3/10 (6 August 2010)

The rating here on IMDb was the reason I bought this DVD. What a mistake. I read the rave reviews, and didn't bother with the bottom end. They were the ones that got it right. Even three stars is probably at least one too many. First off: it seemed to take forever to get going. I kept thinking, when is the story going to start? Second: I couldn't separate the various gangs --- they all looked more or less the same, and spoke in the same incomprehensible patter, dull, witless and obscene. Three: the whole thing felt like a continuous rip-off of earlier films. Not homage, simple-minded rip-off. The ending was so strongly reminiscent of The Italian Job, I could hardly credit it. After reading the one-star reviews I now recognise the lifts from countless other gangster movies, all better than this one. One constant cliché in English crime movies is the lovable criminal Cockney, nearly always incompetent. Personally, I find Cockneys, real as well as cinematic, uniformly unlovable. The Long Good Friday I thought was a very bad film, and this reminded me of it. LSTSM also reminded me, sadly, of True Romance, which is a great, great film.
I was glad to see that many of the negative reviews come from British reviewers: they are not fooled. The good reviews seem mostly to come from across the pond: I suppose they are thinking that this is so weird, confused and corny it must be good. It isn't. Don't bother. I really don't know why I've given it three *** out of ten.
23 April 2011: Totally disgusted to see it's now rated at 8.2 stars. Nauseating.
2 June 2012: Please remove the two stars too many. Technicolour yawn.