London Boulevard

London Boulevard is written and directed by William Monahan. It stars Colin Farrell, David Thewlis, Ray Winstone, Ben Chaplin, Keira Knightley and Anna Friel. Music is by Sergio Pizzorno and cinematography by Chris Menges.

After serving his stretch for GBH, Harry Mitchel (Farrell) returns to his manor and finds gangland boss Rob Gant (Winstone) wants him as one of his charges.

Written and directed by the man who co-wrote The Departed, it's not hard to guess what sort of tone London Boulevard is set at. Which for anyone who follows neo-noir will find plenty to like here, not least the stylish and tonally compliant photography of Menges.

However, falling under the neo-noir banner becomes a curse in a way because there are far greater films of this ilk to liken it too. Pic at least does have the courage to not cop out in resolutions, but again there is no surprise factor for the genre faithfuls.

The narrative often meanders, shoehorning in Knightley's (underused) harassed actress as a love interest in the process, and London accents are choppy. It also is criminal to have Stephen Graham and Eddie Marsan in your movie and barely give them screen time!

On the plus side of things, the violence and dialogue is often taut and tart respectively, backed by a scorching rocky hipster soundtrack. Farrell is good value as a tough guy, Winstone does what he does best, menacing of course, while Thewlis steals the film as a wired cool cat with menace surprisingly lurking in is heart.

As a whole it fails to hit all the right spots, but enough in here for neo-noir fans to feed on as an appetiser to a more fulfilling noir meal. 6/10

Ex-con Colin Farrell is released from prison and take a job as a minder to an actress prowled on by the paparazzi. He also tries to resist the pull back into crime by the local gangster, keen to have him on his payroll.

If this plot was all this film had, it would be run of the mill. Instead, Colin Farrell fills his character out beautifully to counterbalance a reliably excellent Ray Winstone as the slightly-polished savage in his gangster. The performances of Knightley, Thewlis and the brilliant and rarely-seen Chaplin add great flavour to the storytelling. The sum total is a compelling film with depth of character.

It's hard to tell oft-told story elements but the way to success seems to be to tell them well rather than invent twists and turns to try and impress the audience. This film gets that balance of approach right and is a fine watch.

This film was brimming with potential, an adept cast, some stylish directing & gritty yet beautiful set locations. However some of the story & the actions taken by its characters were implausible, & most of its ideas didn't develop effectively on screen.

Recently released gangster Colin Farrell meets a young female friend of reclusive celebrity actor Kiera Knightly & offers him a job protecting her from intrusive paparazzi. He shows up for work & What feels like a scene or two later they have (unconvincingly) fallen in love. parallel to this Farrels character is finding it hard to escape his past & is soon roped into a feud with gangster boss Ray Winstone. He is now faced with the dilemma of either returning to his previous nature or beginning a life of new found love in LA.

All this is played out with some very stylish moments, such as the dialogue between Winstone & Farrel in the restaurant or the artistic but realistic way in which the environment is captured. All the acting is well done & Its accompanied by a great soundtrack, but a huge amount of the script feels rushed & underdeveloped. As a whole it is entertaining if not taken to seriously but may not appeal to any serious film enthusiast.

I also felt that the ending of this film was brave but what I had seen prior to it lacked enough substance or attachment to make it stick & I think I would have been more satisfied with a conventional ending.

I went into this film expecting a cool,tense,exciting Brit thriller. The trailer looked decent and the acting talent on show made me want to give it a go. Overall though it failed to deliver on the promising looking opening credits. It lacked any real tension or suspense, the story felt underdeveloped with too many subplots and a lot of it just fails to convince. Many parts of the film are just not believable enough.

The acting is fairly strong and there are a couple of elegant visual touches;(Farrell in the car for example).In my opinion,the soundtrack is the best thing about the film. Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian had a hand in the music on this one and he has done a good job with a 60's/70's spaghetti western/French art-house vibe if you can imagine such a thing!

Finally its worth noting that I asked my girlfriend to contribute her thoughts after seeing the film and she gave me a one word reply..........."sh*te"

London Boulevard had many flaws but in the end I think it comes out with more good than bad. The actors give strong performances especially Winston and Farrell, and the plot definitely keeps you interested. This is a crime movie about gangsters, and doesn't offer much more than another story about the intertwining and complications of a certain group of gangsters.

I think some downfalls would be that some of the scenes tended to jump around and not flow into the next as smoothly but even this was not an issue much of the time. It had a strong sense of style which also made up for some weak moments in the plot, specifically around the middle of the film it looses momentum. If you like crime movies than this would surely entertain you on a Friday night but I wouldn't add it to your list of your top ten crime movies of all time.