The Fear

Cor blimey - Old Laaandun Taaan was never like this, was it?

It's 2017 - I'm watching this for the first time... and it's aged horribly. But I have a feeling that this is down to me rather than the series. The searingly honest and uncomfortably accurate portrayal of a depressing London during the Margeret Thatcher years is hard to watch.

This is an ambitious production and the drama moves at a rapid clip so you have to pay attention. But the scenery, the clubs, the cars, the general downbeat working class lives are all hard to stomach. It's just TOO realistic. It's 'Only fools and horses!' without the humor!

The highlight of this series is Anthony Valentine better known for his immaculate role in the classic Raffles.

There's not much here for a modern audience to enjoy. The music, the padded shoulders, the hair (oh, the hair!) and the language all seem a bit cheesy now... but if you're a product of the 90s then this may just remind you just how horrible it all was!

If I was grading this when it first came out I'd have easily given it an 8 or 9... but it's a 4 today. :(

This is the sort of thing I like,a crime drama.

In 1988 when it was on tv I was a student and was too busy to watch much tv.

So I was glad to catch up with this on dvd.

But I didn't like it much,the plot is predictable and there are no great performances.

Apart from anything else the sound levels on the dvd make it hard to make out all the dialogue.

Sadly just because it was by Euston Films does not mean it was a classic sadly.

I remembered this vividly from when it was on British television in 1988 and was very curious to see how well it holds up today (2010) when I watched the DVD set recently. It's even better than I remembered, but then its from the Euston Films stable who brought us canonical cop show The Sweeney as well as Trevor Preston's OUT, a moody gangland drama - thriller from 1978 so you'd expect quality.

The Fear follows Armani clad thug Carl Galton (played by Iain Glen) as he tries to increase his criminal empire in North London. Following a bar brawl, his younger brother dies, an older gangster is out of his way and Galton attempts to muscle in on two older gangsters, now respectable businessmen. These are Slater (Anthony Valentine, superb) and Klein (Dennis Lill). A sub plot involves a love triangle with Klein's wife Pat (Linda Marlowe). Another support actor with a long pedigree in British television is Jesse Birdsall as Marty, Carl's best friend. There's another great little subplot involving tensions underlying Carl and Marty's relationship...

Superb cinematography makes full use of a North London yet to become completely gentrified. Lots of moody shots of clubs, streets, canals, railway bridges, recognisable locations such as Islington's Upper Street, a pre Eurostar Kings Cross and The Grand Union Canal. To use venues like the London Apprentice or Jims's Piano bar, well known haunts of London's gay scene of the eighties, was a stroke of genius.

It captures the joyless mood of the Thatcher years so well. Galton's pretentious aspirations exemplified as he sits in an empty office waiting for the bailiffs to arrive. The red Porsche is parked outside but there's no money in the bank as his cheques bounce. Running on empty appearance is all that matters. What the eighties was so about...style and vacuity over any real substance or values.

For a crime drama, most of the violence is all the more effective by being, for the most part, implied. Glen's performance is spot on as an emotionally manipulative, twisted little psychopath tormenting his wife with mind games. Violence comes suddenly making it all the more shocking and unnerving when it does. Narcissism is alluded to throughout with numerous shots of Galton looking at himself in mirrors, or fastidiously adjusting his expensive designer clothes.

Casting Anthony Valentine as Slater, the Mr. Big, is a real treat, he is just superb and completely right for the part. His pretensions to being Lord of the Manor with a Roller parked on the drive of his mansion always and forever betrayed by his working class London accent.

The series is incredibly bold in its scope, with an epic quality to the climax taking place against the backdrop of a midsummer pagan festival. Through the shots of countryside, the interweaving of an industrial unrest subplot and themes of aspiration it becomes as much a meditation upon the nature of Englishness and the decline or otherwise of the English working classes. The Fear pulls together a noir style and sensibility with English shades of Jacobean tragedy to be one of the best British gangster series ever, one which is inexplicably and criminally under rated.

It's been a long time since I saw this mini-series dealing with London gangsters, and I didn't get to see all of it, but I remember being extremely impressed by the acting and by the general presentation. Production values were outstanding. It seemed relatively slow-moving in terms of plot, more slice of life than fast-paced actions or twists and turns, but there was a real plot. This program was very dark in tone, not because of excessive violence, but because of its portrayal of a criminal subculture where no-one can be trusted or relied upon, where success is fleeting, and where even successes are hollow. Unlike Tarantino's gangster flicks or Japanese yakuza films, there are no amusing quirks of character or cartoonish elements to provide comic relief. The lead character has the expensive cars and clothes, and the trophy wife, but it's still not enough to fulfil his ambitions. His sneer of cold command and chilly, controlling demeanour suggests a total emotional vacuum. His wife can't stand his lifestyle, he doesn't even truly know his best friend, his gang consists of imbeciles and traitors, and the timid Irish accountant that he thinks he controls is actually putting the screws on him. The other gangsters he deals with are similarly disillusioned. One talks of how he hates his kids, another says that to him the 60's meant little fun and a lot of hard work. Nobody ends up feeling satisfied despite their desperate and dangerous striving, and perhaps this is what resonated with me so powerfully and made it so memorable.

The Fear followed on the true tradition of Euston Films.....an action drama with a viable plot and characters.

The series follows a London firm who attempt to break into the big time of the London underworld....with tragic consequences.