Gangster Number One Full Movie

[Thedore Rosa]

GangsterNo. 1 is a 2000 British crime drama film directed by Paul McGuigan. It is based on the stage play Gangster No.1 written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto.[2][3] The film stars Paul Bettany in the title role and features Malcolm McDowell, David Thewlis and Saffron Burrows.

The film opens with an unnamed British veteran gangster attending a boxing match with friends. Hearing in conversation that another gangster, Freddie Mays, is to be released from prison after 30 years, he falls silent and leaves the table to recover his composure.

The narrative flashes back to the 1960s, showing a younger Gangster. He comes to the attention of an influential London gangster, Freddie Mays (Thewlis), who recruits him as an enforcer. The Gangster is eager to please; his violence impresses Mays and he proves his loyalty with creative methods of murder. However, the Gangster from the start is obsessed with and jealous of Mays' success and glamorous lifestyle, demonstrated in his luxury clothing and plush flat.

The Gangster discovers that Mays' rival, Lennie Taylor, is planning to kill Mays. Instead of warning him, the Gangster decides to let the attack take place, and kills the only other member of his gang who is aware of the plan. The Gangster watches as Taylor and his gang shoot and stab Mays, and slit the throat of his fiance, Karen. Later that night, the Gangster goes to Taylor's flat, shoots him in the leg and tortures him to death.

The Gangster discovers the following day that Mays did not die but was hospitalised. Mays is unjustly convicted of ordering Taylor's murder and sent to prison for 30 years. With Mays out of the way, the Gangster assumes leadership of the gang and consolidates his position. In a sequence spanning the years between 1968 and 1999, he is shown organizing a bank heist, opening a casino, fixing horse races, and building his gang to over 300.

The narrative returns to the aged Gangster at the boxing event, where he discovers that Karen also survived and is due to marry Mays, who has left prison a changed man. The Gangster summons Mays to his old flat, which the Gangster took over. The Gangster, seeking to resolve any threat and his own demons, offers Mays money and the flat. However, Mays seemingly has no fight left in him, wanting only to marry Karen and retire in peace. The Gangster threatens Mays with a gun, then gives Mays the gun, confesses his silence over the attempted murder and Taylor's death and begs Mays to kill him; Mays leaves, acknowledging how empty and pathetic the Gangster's life is.

The film was met with a generally positive critical reception. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a score of 71% based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "Gangster No. 1 is brutally violent, yet also compelling." Critics disliked the violence present throughout the movie but praised the performances and style.[9]On Metacritic the film has a score of 60 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics.[10]

Clark Collis of Empire magazine gives the film 3 out of 5 stars. Collis calls the film "A stylistically superb jaunt through psychotically Swinging London" and praises the "scene stealing" performances of Bettany and McDowell but reserves his highest praises for photographer-turned-director McGuigan.[11]Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian calls it "a powerful and serious film [...] a miasma of hysteria and anxiety - a real addition to the British crime canon."[12]

If Alex DeLarge of "A Clockwork Orange" had become a London gangster, he might have turned out like the hero of "Gangster No. 1." The movie encourages that connection by casting Malcolm McDowell, the original Alex, as the character grown old. Paul Bettany, who plays Young Gangster, is often photographed with his eyes glaring up from beneath lowered brows, which was the signature look Stanley Kubrick gave Alex. Another connection: The movie contains a beating of startling brutality, scored by a pop song played at top volume. The movie is inspired, as all modern London gangster movies are inspired, by the notorious Kray brothers. It isn't based on their lives or deeds, but on the aura of evil they so successfully projected; they often got their way without violence, because they seemed so capable of it. In "Gangster No. 1," the crime family is led by Freddie Mays (David Thewlis), who in 1968 is a young, sleek, expensively groomed hood who runs a nightclub and surrounds himself with hard men; he's known as the Butcher of Mayfair. One day he summons Young Gangster, tosses him a roll of bills, hires him and seals his own fate.

We see him with cronies at a private boxing club; they're laughing uglies, drinking champagne, smoking cigars, recalling the violent days of their youth (significantly, their memories are starting to be unreliable). Then he learns that Freddie is getting out of prison, his eyes narrow, and we go into the flashback.

The 1968 events have been called Shakespearean, which is fair enough, since just about everything is Shakespearean. They also have a touch of Freud. Young Gangster admires Freddie enormously, wants to be like him, and is probably half in love with him. When Freddie falls in love with the nightclub singer Karen (Saffron Burrows), Young Gangster is consumed with jealousy. In one of the movie's strongest scenes, he confronts Karen, who not too subtly offers to help him find a girl, and then spits in his face.

Bettany's reaction shot is a piece of work. His face screws into a rictus of hate, he seems about to hit her, and then, by an act of will, he starts smiling--which is even more frightening. There has been a gangland feud between Freddie and a rival named Lennie Taylor (Jamie Foreman), and when Young Gangster learns of a planned hit on Freddie and Karen, he goes to the location, stays in his car, and watches it like a drama. Then he kills Lennie, to frame Freddie for the murder.

The sequence involving this murder is one of the most brutal and, it must be said, successfully filmed acts of violence I have seen. Chilling, how Young Gangster breaks down the door of Lennie's flat, shoots him in the knee, then carefully takes off his coat, shirt, tie and pants, because he doesn't want them bloodied in the events ahead. Then he unpacks a tool kit, including a hatchet, a hammer and a chisel. The attack is seen through Lennie's point of view, as he fades in and out of consciousness. Another piece of work.

The movie is exact in its characters and staging, using Freddie's sunken living room conversation pit as a kind of stage; the man in power towers over the others. But I am not sure the ending really concludes anything. We see Freddie and Young (now Old) Gangster in a final exchange of information, revelation and emotional brinksmanship, but then there's a coda with the older gangster on a rooftop, shouting for all the world like the bitter loser in a 1930s Warner Bros. crime movie. This conclusion is too pat to be satisfying, but the film has a kind of hard, cold effect.

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