The Crew

Movies from across the Pond are occasionally Excellent and they do tend to be Proud of their Gangster and Comedy Films that can sometimes influence Hollywood. Here is another in a current trend of Organized Crime Thrillers, British Style. These generally fall into two Categories. Wink and Smirk, Guy Ritchie Types, or Dirty and Gritty. This one is the Latter.

It is definitely Dirty. Not only in its Look and Tone but Sexually Speaking. Trouble is that while attempting to be Realistic and Unfettered, the Unfiltered Lens shows some Ugly, Disturbing, Disgusting, and Perverted Scenes that seem Staged for nothing more than to Elevate the Bar of Bad Taste.

One such Scene is so Brutal that its not only Annoying but asks the question Why?, than the Realization come along, that it is just a not so Subtle way to separate this abhorrent Behavior, from the other Lesser abhorrent Behavior, so the Audience can side with the more Civilized Criminal. The one who is Married, wears tailored Suits, has a Son, and doesn't do Drugs.

The Plot is Unforgivably Confusing and there are Scenes and Subplots so Undeveloped that the whole thing just Collapses and takes on a Complexity that is more Frustrating than Intriguing.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Liverpool crime boss Ged Brennan (Scot Williams) has built a successful and respected life for himself on the back of a life of crime but bad intelligence on his last scam lead to it all being a waste of time. Even worse, a figure head of crime in his local area has just turned up dead and the hunt is on for who did it. But Ged's planning to get back into the game with his biggest heist yet- but the threat of betrayal all around him is becoming a real problem.

All the ingriedients were here for a perfect crime film- realistic and brutal, The Crew on paper must have seemed perfect. But while it's far from an awful attempt to bring the world of the Liverpool crime scene to life, it still feels like a bit of a mess and like it falls short of what it first set out to do. And even worse, it seems to be one of those films where the trailer has made it look more exciting than it really is.

The main problem is how disjointed and incoherent it all feels, with the main story and the sub plot seeming to morph over each other and taking up too much time, and with the film running at maybe a bit too ambitious just under two hours, this is even more of a problem. While I understand the film intended to be brutal and hard hitting, a tooled up gang in forensic outfits filming their slaughter of a group of drug addicts in a flat, a scene where a male and female junkie are made to perform sleazy sex acts for and on two crooks with bisexual leanings and a leary Scots character who gets his thrills from strippers and fat hookers all feel a tad gratuitous and added merely for shock value. Far from awful, but could have been a lot better if done with a bit more restraint and focus. **

"Ged" (Scot Williams) has made a very good living over the years and now lives an outwardly respectable life with his family in London. Meantime, though, he is investing a cool £250,000 in one last scheme to raise him millions and hopefully set him on the straight and narrow. The thing is, his lieutenants - led by "Ratter" (Kenny Doughty) are bored living on what they perceive to be the scraps. They know that there's way more cash to be made if they start dealing hard drugs. "Ged" wants no truck with this, but egged on by his pal "Paul" (Philip Olivier), "Ratter" is determined that he will get his way - by hook or by crook. With the pressure mounting on their boss, revolution brewing amongst the troops and the deadly Serbs waiting in the wings to muscle in on this lucrative market, it's going to take all "Ged" can muster to save himself and his family from the new world order. On the face of it, this is a solid gangster story but as to it's execution - well that is just weak. Loads of faux-Scouse accents pepper the over-scripted drama; loads more Anglo-Saxon expletives don't make these actors into plausible hard-men and the whole thing looks like it's a low budget episode from a 1980s television series. Some of it is intentionally distasteful and on occasion that does work at illustrating just how odious, depraved and greedy some of this gang are, but so often those scenes seem here for their own gratification rather than to put any meat on the bones of these characters and at just over two hours, it takes far too long to get to anything like a sharp end about which I'd lost interest after some random sexually fluid brutality in a penthouse. It's based on a fairly graphic novel and I think it'd be best just to read that and let your own imagination do the work that Adrian Vitoria doesn't manage to do, here. This is just poor, sorry.

I really do dream of a better time for British cinema. This film is a glimpse of what could be. This film like all good movies focus' on a good story line, actors in roles they suit and a good pace for its style. A simmering tension through the main characters crumbling self confidence. The edge comes from some brutal violence thrown into boil. Added with the right taste, again for the type of movie it is. Along with a dash of hot lesbian action, a couple of twists and a quintessential scouse feel. Usually i think scousers get a bad representation as comedy or annoying characters but this time everyone one had a natural feel to them. In summary i would highly recommend it to any man and their dog, especially the dog.

Another British film from the early 21st Century and like so many other Brit flicks it revolves around a bunch of hardened gangsters

" Wow Theo I think you might have to elaborate ? "

Do I have to ? To be fair it's not one of those embarrassing Guy Ritchie inspired comedy gangster movies that tries and fails to bring a smile to the audiences face . Well it does but these scenes are so intermittent and forgettable that they're forgotten about by the half way stage of the next scene

You certainly won't feel like laughing much because this is foul mouthed brutal stuff . Characters are incapable of opening their mouths without a stream of expletives come gushing out . That's not when they're torturing , beating or murdering one another and some scenes merely exist to shoehorn some explicit mindless violence just in case the audience get bored without ten minutes of graphic violence . Perhaps the producers should concentrated on developing the story a bit more

This is one of two problems with THE CREW . As other people have been quick to point out the film is trying to be complex but just ends up confused as rival firms cross , double cross and triple cross one another so much so that you'll be lost as to why the latest victim is getting ripped off or tortured . By having a Serbian gang as one of the protagonists you're also reminded of LAYER CAKE and how much superior that was to the Ritchie wannabes

The second fundamental fault is that the entire look of the film . Again other commentators have brought it up and that is the film never appears cinematic and resembles something shown on Channel 4 at tea time . Did someone mention HOLLYOAKS ? Try and imagine HOLLYOAKS with the F and C words in every sentence along with frequent maimings and murders and you've got a rough idea what THE CREW resembles on a visual level