Classic stylish British gangster movie among the best

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2003)

This movie is up there with (Caine's) "Get Carter" and "The Long Good Friday" as my favourite British gangster movies. However it is vastly different from those two eg. voice-overs, black humour (throughout and very funny), the central characters are not vicious killers. However the gangsters are evil nasty characters (I love the way one practices his golf), the plot has many twists (the ending is a classic!) and various seemingly unrelated groups move inexorably closer as the end nears. There are some violent scenes and there is swearing so it's not a "G" rating. Guy "Mr Madonna" Ritchie's direction and feel is excellent as is the involved plot with interlinked "stuff-ups". In this movie he works the new movie genre: a stylish humorous gangster movie. There are Tarantino similarities but this movie stands up on its own. A classic worth the watch. (By the way, an earlier reviewer said that there is only 1 woman in the film - there are in fact 2 - the card game supervisor is the other one and she talks. It's still a "blokey" film however).