The Guv'nor

Knew the name and some of the stories, and the documentary film did not disappoint summing up McLean's life over an 80 min run time. However having his son narrate the documentary had me concerned from the start and my fears were justified with his son Jamie trying to show off a hard man reputation for himself.

We all know people personally who live life through a parent, and this seemed very much the case here as Jamie seemed to revel growing up in his dads hard man shadow asking the question is he viewed to be just like his dad - simple answer is no. The question of why very few of McLean's family were willing to be interviewed was never answered except Jamie's mention they were 'all a bit nuts'.

With no one else to interview its left to Jamie to recite the legendary stories he had heard growing up, some from when he was a 7 year old boy so rationalisation will have to go out the window. Do not come in to this documentary expecting many facts or hard evidence except relying on some home videos to judge for yourself.

The documentary only really got interesting with 12 minutes to go when off camera, McLean's sister had mentioned he had a darker side to him (shocker) and he could be a bully sometimes growing up. For the first time a negative issue was being raised which was much welcomed for some unbiased viewing. However things rapidly went downhill when this 'revelation' caused the narrator Jamie to feel emotional and he then gets involved in an altercation in a cafe (off camera!) to show he is a big tough guy after all - yawn.

All in a decent time passer but do not expect to find out anything new here, particularly from anyone in McLean's inner circle.

While the man this documentary is about is certainly an interesting one, his son tells the story, almost to the exclusion of anyone else.

Biased and largely self-promoting, it is almost more about the son than the father. No one in the family wanted to talk about him on camera.

If the story was told by someone else, someone with an iota of journalistic / research skills, it may have been much more interesting.

Having Known about Lenny as The Guv'nor, i was not expecting this to be so emotional and eye-opening, having lennie's son do the narration and generally opening up about past life was incredible...this is a must see documentary about a legend of a man 10 out 0f 10.....what was interesting as well, was the new facts that i didn't know about Lenny growing up in London and being among the same sort of people as Lenny i do have an understanding of what life was like, bullying was rife and actually people like Lennie's step-dad were all over the place. the saddest part of all this is that Lenny didn't get to see this remarkable piece of cinema

Found it kinda boring. Right away Lenny's sibling refuse to speak, so we're left with anecdotes told by his son, many of which have the flavour of urban legend. This undermines the credibility of the film as a documentary, but it also makes it less full, bold and character-rich. Lenny seems flat, and for a character who really only had notoriety in a tiny corner of the world, it is that spice of character, background, motivation, personal struggle etc. That is needed to make such a story worth telling. As it stands, it feels like a story told by the barman over a couple pints late at night before closing.

A documentary about one Britain's hardest men and in his day the number 1 top boxer, of the underworld scene. The story is well told by his son, who has a jovial personality and does go into some great detail about his life, from a troubled childhood, up until his untimely death. The film does lack the involvement of other family members but the boxing footage is amazing to view.