Face

Carlyle at his best, great script and a fantastic cast. I would strongly recommend anyone who has not seen this film as yet to get it immediately. British cinema is finally starting to move away from romantic comedies and period pieces, and showing that they can make excellent films on small budgets. Another must see, is Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels.

Believe it or not, Britain did make decent gangster films prior to Guy Ritchie's arrival with 'Lock Stock' style of film-making. And, one of those that has and probably always will be eclipsed by Ritchie's way of film-making will be 'Face.' And that's slightly surprising as it has two – reasonably – big names in British cinema in the lead roles – Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone.

Perhaps one of its 'flaws' (and I put that word in quotes because, personally, I don't consider it a flaw) is the way it's directed. It's hardly an exercise in style. Ritchie's 'Lock Stock' films were that rare breed that seamlessly blended style AND substance. Well, Face does have the substance to be a great film, it just doesn't have the style.

It feels a bit like a 'made-for-TV' movie (perhaps because it was made by the BBC?) with its *slightly* bland style of direction. There's no snappy montages or cracking tunes to heighten the mood and atmosphere. This is probably why it never really appealed to the masses.

It's about a bank robbery gone wrong (yes, I know that brief summary also sums up Reservoir Dogs, but, trust me, it's nothing like that). The criminals get away with the loot, but someone wants it all and are prepared to use – lethal – force to get it.

Okay, so it doesn't have the style of Lock Stock or the instant cool of a Tarrantino movie, but it is a good little number in its own right. If you're into your gangster films and aren't looking for something 'uber-cool' then you could do worse than watch this one.

You'll probably find it on TV late at night, or as part of a TV/Movie streaming service. If so, it's definitely worth a watch.

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Face is among the subgenre of movies that can still blindside me with severe mediocrity. There are intermittent times when I simply cannot resist a cheeky gangster flick, and Face is one of the candygrams that blows up in your face. There's nothing inherently wrong with the story except that it has been used more times than a hooker's hanky, the basic premise anyway.

The film begins with Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone, two of England's great screen badasses, breaking into a drug dealer's apartment, posing as police officers in order to raid his cash and his stash. The next scene begins the unfolding of the mainline of the plot, a bank robbery. And they have their logistics man, Robert Carlyle's old friend from prison, et cetera. Then the third event in the film is the inevitable betrayal within the heist crew. And of course there's Carlyle's nagging, guilt-laying girlfriend. I've always wondered what else will happen in a crime film whenever the story's pivotal heist occurs in the first twenty minutes other than betrayals and nagging token female characters. These filmmakers don't seem to have shared my curiosity.

Aside from a small portion of time given to Carlyle's backstory as a war protester, Face is just another recycled crime flick for teenagers telling the age-old tale of a group of violent criminals and what happens to them after they steal a lot of money. It even employs another thriller gimmick: It's set over the course of 48 hours in and around the city, in this case London. What director Antonia Bird, who did later direct a decent Robert Carlyle movie called Ravenous, tries to do is gloss the film with grunge, badassery and style as a substitute for expanding on what she pulled off the assembly line, one of the results of this choice being a soundtrack that is unusually bad for an English gangster film.

I'm sure I'm not being fair enough to this movie. There are several assembly line movies that are entertaining enough, but frankly I don't feel that requires an explanation that differentiates between this and them. To me, if you're making an insincere movie, the audience has the right to be subjective. Whether one considers it a good movie or not is now pure luck. With Face, I was bored and cynical. If it were on TV on a lazy day or when I need to kill a little time, I might stay for a few minutes of the shootout in the street (in which you can briefly hear an unmistakable soundbite of Tim Roth's wailing early in Reservoir Dogs), or for one good if very brief scene, where Carlyle is comforted by Winstone by hugging him when he's crying.

This is one of those unusual films where the actors all did their parts quite well and convincingly, however, the film itself seemed to be lacking something. I am sorry to say that part of the issue is with the editing.

I don't mind edits that tend to jump between past and present, but there just wasn't enough to demonstrate why Ray the alleged former socilist had turned to a life of crime. Therefore the jump-cut references fail to make the connection between his memory of a fateful protest in his youth and the man he was today.

The acting was brilliant, and each artist did a superb job, which is why I give it a 7. You could see that perhaps the writer had intended a more meaningful story, but some of it must have ended up on the cutting room floor.

This British crime film has got superb casting: every single performace is rock-solid and Robert Carlyle absolutely shines. Cast also includes an extra-terrestrially beautiful lady, Lena Headey. And the storyline is flawless -- full of interesting characters, believable enough, and deliciously crooked but free of annoying twists for twists' sake.

Yet, somehow, the movie never quite reaches brilliance, but falls into the "quite nice" category instead. Directing and cinematography is a bit too conservative; a few original tricks (just a hint of artistic touch, some surprising angles, tinted scenes or anything at all) could have spiced the movie just enough to make it more memorable. And although the music in the action parts is appropriate, the clichéd saccharine sound squandering backing the more romantic moments is dismaying. This would have been a much better movie already if those sequences would have been void of music.

So it is not a masterpiece despite the potential, but I liked it a lot nonetheless. Recommended to all who have an affinity for British quality movies. (7.5/10)