Review of Gangster No. 1 (2000) by Afzal S — 17 Apr 2008

Paul McGuigan avoids the usual route of the nineties Brick Gangster Flick to take the genre back to beginnings. McDowell is at his insane best as an old gangster recounting his career in criminality, with Paul Bettany his equally insane younger self rising up the ranks of London's gangster fraternity rather like a modern-day MacBeth. Thewlis and Safron Burrows hold their own as a redeemable gangster and his moll who promote Bettany/McDowell eventually to their own grizzly cost.

The message of Gangster No. 1 is not that gangsterism is cool, but that it is cruel, even evil. And still, a little like Scorcese's later Gangster films like Casino, McGuigan can't quite stop himself glorying in all the naked ambition and swagger inherent in Gangsterism.