Gangster No. 1 (2000)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Paul McGuigan

Writer:

Johnny Ferguson (screenplay)

Release Date:

9 June 2000 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

There can only be ONE.

Plot:

Chronicles the rise and fall of a prominent, and particularly ruthless English gangster.

Plot Keywords:

Gangster | Rise And Fall | Prison | Cockney Gangster | Gang War

Awards:

1 win & 9 nominations

Cast

Malcolm McDowell	...	Gangster 55
David Thewlis	...	Freddie Mays
Paul Bettany	...	Young Gangster
Saffron Burrows	...	Karen
Kenneth Cranham	...	Tommy (as Ken Cranham)
Jamie Foreman	...	Lennie Taylor
Eddie Marsan	...	Eddie Miller
Andrew Lincoln	...	Maxie King
Doug Allen	...	Mad John
Razaaq Adoti	...	Roland
Cavan Clerkin	...	Billy
David Kennedy	...	Fat Charlie
Johnny Harris	...	Derek
Anton Saunders	...	Trevor (as Anton Valensi)
Alex McSweeney	...	Bloke In Tailor's

Also Known As:

Gangster No. 1 (Australia)
Gangster Nr. 1 (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, and brief drug use and nudity.

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

UK | Germany | Ireland

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA (censored version) | Canada:R | Chile:18 | France:-16 | Germany:16 | New Zealand:R18 | South Korea:18 | UK:18 | USA:R | Singapore:M18

Filming Locations:

Babelsberg Studios, Berlin, Germany

Company:

FilmFour

Trivia:

Jamie Foreman (Lennie Taylor) is the son of Freddie Foreman, a notorious gangster who used to run with the Kray Brothers. His life was the basis for the movie The Long Good Friday (1980).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Gangster 55 is telling Freddy Mays to shoot him and the camera is showing his back you can see the gun that Freddy is holding on the couch. The next shot Freddy Mays puts the gun on the couch and leaves.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[song "The Good Life" begins as scene opens at boxing match; crowd noises]
Gangster 55: [laughing] What? With Scotland Yard breathing down me neck? Fuck off. Do me a favor!
[laughter]

Movie Connections:

References Pulp Fiction (1994)

Soundtrack:

Ten Guitars

McDowell redivivus

What a mug! The evil-harlequin mask of Malcolm McDowell, so familiar from those bugeyed closeups of him "mounching lumpchiks of toast" in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, has aged into a fabulous ruin. And one of the pleasures of the glib, slick, cocky, brutal, shallow, and terrifically entertaining GANGSTER NO. 1 is in the realization that McDowell is the same McDowell--his voiceover has the same energetic sneer it had 31 years ago in CLOCKWORK. He's the same guy under a withered and weathered facade. As Gangster No. 1--a sociopath with a schoolgirl crush on his boss, spit-shined David Thewlis--McDowell brings you into the succulent pleasures of aged corruption and long-swallowed brutality. No. 1's nuttiness--a kind of belch of guilt, generally released in Francis Bacon-derivative silent screams--seems, for a while, like fun. Paul Bettany, playing Young No. 1, has a great, lizardlike, histrionic deadpan--he keeps telling his victims "Look into my eyes!" as if something scary and deep were hidden there. (Instead, there is zero--an effect Young No. 1 may be unaware of.) The movie takes such a jaunty and directorially piquant view of its own shin-kicking nihilism that you can't help but play along; until the moralizing but utterly earned finale sets you on your ear.

Not deep stuff--not even as deep as the superbly unself-reflective head-smackers who made up GOODFELLAS' crew. But Saffron Burrows, as a Cockney chanteuse who's mad in love with Thewlis' Mr. Big, brings you back to the days of much-posher-and-prettier-than-their-parts British character actresses. (Could Burrows in fact be the Susannah York of the millennium?) And the director, Paul McGuigan, and Bettany keep the joint jumpin'. Why did this get such a crummy release? There's been almost nothing this year as sheerly, undilutedly fun.