London Boulevard (2010)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Take any Tarantino/Ritchie gangsters movie, Carlito's way, Sexy Beast, some fragrance ads, shake well and the result is London Boulevard.Farrell is Mitchel, a gangster released from prison who wants to stay "clean" - major cliché - He has a slutty sister (Friel as Briony, the most annoying character in the movie) and a sleazy business associate (Chaplin as Billy, with greasy long hair and speaking with a thick accent).Very randomly Mitchel gets a job as bodyguard for Charlotte, a millionaire movie star, hunted by paparazzi. At this stage it starts to look like two movies randomly stuck together and unfortunately, random is the key word of this plot development. Knightley - as megastar Charlotte - is terrible. Her delivery is stiff and flat and we get the full Knightley package of quivering lips, beady eyes, thick bangs and fashionable rags that barely cover her emaciated frame Knightley's face plastered around London reminded me she is a perfume-salesperson (I mean "testimonial"). When she was on screen, I expected to see the fragrance she advertises among other product placements. At some stage the random plot introduces Winstone, allegedly a big crime lord, sporting elegant clothes, glasses and a beard to fool us into believing he is not Winstone. I could hardly hear a word he said because - I guess - his voice coach suggested that whispering makes a criminal seem more dangerous.None of the characters is sympathetic: Mitchel is as violent as his associates, Charlotte's problem is that she is too rich and famous, Winstone is a brutal thug, Briony is a silly slut, Billy a coward, etc…Sub-plots and characters (the beggar, the policeman, Charlotte's live-in friend, the doctor…) appear and disappear randomly and way too late the movie reaches its plagiarist ending.PS the soundtrack is good though, very Swinging London

I like Gangster movies, which is to say I like films about gangsters rather than films about cops trying to catch gangsters, which is a completely different genre. I like American gangster movies and I like Japanese gangster movies but I especially like British gangster movies. There have been many really good British gangster movies from the jokey offerings of Guy Ritchie to the grimmest of the grim "40 inch chest" and the sublime "Sexy Beasts" and of course "In Bruges". "Layer Cake" was another really good British gangster movie and it is this film that London Boulevard tries so desperately to emulate. Certain sections of the movie are basically re-shoots of similar scenes, it makes one wonder if Colin Farrell was staking a claim to be the next James Bond. Sorry Collin, if you had made this film 6 years earlier you might have been in with a shout but as it stands it is merely an average effort from a list of talent who should really have done better. David Thewlis is an exception to this, his performance, although a bit generic as the stoner English toff is the best part of the film. This is not to say that there isn't some entertainment to be found here and even the sparrow like Keira Knightley isn't as annoying as she usually is but just don't go getting your hopes up, its nowhere near a classic.

This is one of Collin Farrell's better movies, I would say. He actually plays a man with a complex personality and large emotional range. Unfortunately the plot of the film is somewhat thin. You have this London underground which immediately attacks freshly freed from jail Mitchel. He has it so tough to stay straight, with offers for more or less disreputable jobs and a lot of "gangsta" shenanigans that don't really make any sense if you look at it from afar. The obsession of the gangster boss with Mitchel is as difficult to explain as is Mitchell's inability to use his God given skills to get out of a sticky situation.It's not that the movie is bad, it's that the story is pretty obvious and teaches nothing. There is no humor, Knightley as a love interest was never my cup of tea and by now it's gotten really old, and the London gangsters and their propensity for showing off is not the crowd pleaser that it used to be.So, sorry, an average film with pretty good actors is still an average film.

It's too bad the rest of the film was not as interesting as the graphics used in the opening and closing credits (I don't think talking about the closing credits can be described as a "spoiler"). This is the kind of film I would describe as a British version of the American genre "mumble-corp". It's one of the few times I wished I had set my preferences to show subtitles along with the English version of the film. The greatest crime perpetrated in this film is that good actors capable of so much better actually got paid for the rote performances they all turned in. The British gangster genre is something that stands on its own for the sheer villainy of the bad guys. However, the histrionic levels of punishment meted out by these gangsters is so over the top that you have to ask yourself: "Was that really necessary?". In the words of the late Toronto film critic, John Harkness, "Wait until it comes out in video and then don't rent it."