A Very British Gangster

Overly long and without much unifying message, A Very British Gangster will surely leave many scratching their heads. Americans usually have a entirely different view of what a "British Gangster" would be. These guys seem to be minor characters in a Guy Ritchie movie. Rather than wearing three piece suits and driving expensive cars, the Noonan family make their living exploiting the down trodden members of Manchester in their cheap clothes and fake gold jewelry.

We really don't get to see the true underbelly of what life is like as a gangster in Manchester. The gang spends its time posing on street corners, making idle threats and generally looking like a bunch of kids trying to emulate the real deal. But we do get a sense that there is much more below the surface. We never meet the real gangsters we expect to find but they seem to lurk in the corners the film doesn't explore. The Noonans seem to be putting on a show for the cameras, allowing only their teenage goons to be on camera and their operations limited to settling disputes between the locals. Dominic claims to have stolen millions of dollars, but the whole gang is still stuck in near poverty, living in small flats and proud of their meager possessions.

This movie is less a study on a British crime boss and more a look at the gritty reality of the poor urban centers of Britain. Places where small time crooks can still make money on petty crimes and instilling fear in the local community. The Noonans are playing a game that is getting increasingly harder to win at. Many of the kids have dreams to do something different with their lives. One wants to be an actor, another a singer, another just to escape Manchester. Unfortunately, the sad truth is most of the gang, including Noonan's son and God Son, are spiraling down the gutter without any hope or guidance that could help them become anything more than small times thieves; destined to spend most of their adult lives behind bars.

This movie wants the crime boss whoever to be some mythic figure, when he's just top-punk. No insights are made about the nature of crime or poverty. Songs are used over and over again to attempt to make you feel tough when seeing these clownish buffoons. Then they want your sympathy when a man who cannot keep a straight face when asked if murder is wrong, dies.The tone taken is trying to make you look up to this guy when he is just a stupid man hungry for power. I've become very agitated at this documentary and although in some parts, glimpses of the horror this man created, it plays more like a Wikipedia article where entire paragraphs are copied from a biased personal web-page.

It was not till my second viewing of this "documentary" that I discovered that it had been made for Channel 5. This should tell you everything you need - it is cheap, tacky and sensationalised.

The central figure, Dominic Noonan, is a nasty person. A really nasty person. The kind of person that should stay behind bars, the kind of person that should not be allowed to procreate. Throughout the film I could find no discerning characteristics in him. The film maker seemed intent on only showing/talking about the negative aspects (and doing so in a glorified manner). I suspect it is because this thug has no positive qualities at all.

But thats by the by, this is a documentary of sorts so what it shows is the real life thug and the life he leads. Right? Wrong. What we end up with is an extremely biased documentary that only skims the surface of what this moron and his low life scum family are really like. What we get is a piece of work very heavily weighted towards the superficial elements of the Noonans, their background, their extended families, the dreams and aspirations of the younger generation.

The deeper questions are never covered (although I will say that the scene where the brother is asked about any murders he may have committed is quite chilling) and we end up with a fluffy tale about a grown man hanging around with young boys.

The portrayal of this idiot as a gangster is untruthful. Sure, he may be in reality but for the purposes of this documentary we see nothing that can be attributed to a gangster lifestyle in any meaning of the phrase. What we are shown is a nasty, uneducated and extremely unlikeable person who lives off the fear he and his family have created in their own little bubble of a world for years.

In conclusion, therefore, the main problem with this film is not the central character/theme. It is not the lack of brain cells in his extended family. It is the fact that the film maker has focused on pallying up to his subjects and in doing so has lost any objectivity. It is as if he has spent a few weeks with some friends and recorded them playing up to him and the camera. For this reason alone I cannot consider this a true documentary, rather a puff piece made by someone who seems overly enamoured with his subject and the perceived life he leads.

To be fair after watching this for about 20 minutes I thought this was a David Brent, Office type spoof documentary about someone believing they were a gangster. One of the most cringe-worthy things I have ever seen, a bloke living in a terraced house in Manchester,driving a clapped out Volvo with a posse of 17 year old boys in TK Max suits parading behind him. The only reason to watch this is for a good laugh at an individual who takes himself seriously where viewers wouldn't in any sense of the word and seems to believe he really is some crime lord. The more this (mock) documentary goes on the more you find yourself just wondering what the film makers are seriously thinking...are they taking the pi55 and mocking this individual (my guess is yes) or making a genuine insight? Ricky Gervais has nothing on this fella

In my personal opinion this title is an excellent overview of Manchester life, as the title says 'A very British Gangster' which anyone living in Manchester will know fully the reputation the Noonans have. (unlike some of the comments made about them i.e 'Clownish Baffoons'???!!!) Desmond's link to major cities across the country made the Noonan's unique, the fact he had the audacity to start dealing with Gangsters from other cities in the UK made them unstoppable. The documentary also portrays Manchester correctly which in some areas is very poor and slum like

An excellent Film/documentary on life in Manchester, which perhaps doesn't show the full extent of what they are actually capable of !!!!