The second best ever Brit gangster movie is a brilliant energy-filled piece. Lock, Stock, Barrels is fine if you want a jokey gangster film bailed out by lucky coincidences, but this is the real thing, believable and intelligent.
The film reminds me a bit of the gritty Glasgow-based TV detective series Taggart, which presumably owes this film a considerable debt, having more than its share of overt violence, explosions and generally hard men.
What really raises this movie into the stratosphere is the bravura performance by Bob 'Oskins. The much-praised ending is so fine. Surely it's the most dazzling display of an actor's craft to hold in close facial shot for a prolonged time showing a variety of emotions cross the features? Hoskins does this to perfection, showing (at least) disbelief, anger, realization, fear, grim amusement and acceptance over a 90 second period, all the while set to pounding soundtrack and flickering lighting from passing streetlamps. Not many movies include such prolonged close facial scenes. Jack Nicholson is another actor who can do them, for example in a long scene in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
If you haven't seen this, do yourself a favor.
The film reminds me a bit of the gritty Glasgow-based TV detective series Taggart, which presumably owes this film a considerable debt, having more than its share of overt violence, explosions and generally hard men.
What really raises this movie into the stratosphere is the bravura performance by Bob 'Oskins. The much-praised ending is so fine. Surely it's the most dazzling display of an actor's craft to hold in close facial shot for a prolonged time showing a variety of emotions cross the features? Hoskins does this to perfection, showing (at least) disbelief, anger, realization, fear, grim amusement and acceptance over a 90 second period, all the while set to pounding soundtrack and flickering lighting from passing streetlamps. Not many movies include such prolonged close facial scenes. Jack Nicholson is another actor who can do them, for example in a long scene in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
If you haven't seen this, do yourself a favor.