A Very British Gangster

This movie wants the crime boss whoever to be some mythic figure, when he's just top-punk. No insights are made about the nature of crime or poverty. Songs are used over and over again to attempt to make you feel tough when seeing these clownish buffoons. Then they want your sympathy when a man who cannot keep a straight face when asked if murder is wrong, dies.The tone taken is trying to make you look up to this guy when he is just a stupid man hungry for power. I've become very agitated at this documentary and although in some parts, glimpses of the horror this man created, it plays more like a Wikipedia article where entire paragraphs are copied from a biased personal web-page.

In my personal opinion this title is an excellent overview of Manchester life, as the title says 'A very British Gangster' which anyone living in Manchester will know fully the reputation the Noonans have. (unlike some of the comments made about them i.e 'Clownish Baffoons'???!!!) Desmond's link to major cities across the country made the Noonan's unique, the fact he had the audacity to start dealing with Gangsters from other cities in the UK made them unstoppable. The documentary also portrays Manchester correctly which in some areas is very poor and slum like

An excellent Film/documentary on life in Manchester, which perhaps doesn't show the full extent of what they are actually capable of !!!!

I really don't know what was driving the director to turn a exceptionally interesting set of problems into an almost unwatchable and featherbrained piece of crap.

The gangsters shown to us are actually small time criminals, that come from the most knocked off part of society and never made it out of it. Don't expect anything streetwise either, these people are way beyond that. What you are going to hear are stunningly stupid statements that rather reflect pipe dreams than reality. Surprisingly that is exactly the point, that could have made this an exceptionally good and important documentary. A honest picture of how bad it can get in these so very "social" western societies. Where people are left and forgotten to literally rot in their own trash if they don't fit in.

Instead of showing us the decline of a city, the dark side of unlimited growth and wealth, Donald McIntyre tries to create a Hollywood-like gangster story which simply isn't there. The (over-) dramatization is comparable to such reality-shows as "cops" at best. The scenes and interviews are so awfully overdrawn - it is embarrassing. McIntyre doesn't make a single attempt to put things into perspective. At first you might think he cleverly uses Noonans narcissism to lure him out of cover. But when the first 30 minutes have past and Noonan is still talking trash while McIntyre keeps asking stupid questions you realize that it just won't gain any quality. Instead the pictures are underlined by folk and rock music combined with good but utterly unnecessary camera angles that (i'm afraid) intentionally glorify the whole habitus of these people. Especially the complex pan shots make the scenes look staged and false.

As a previous critic has put very well, you can not always tell the difference between a documentary and the poor copy of a guy-ritchie-film. The entire approach is so amazingly undifferentiated and cheesy, at times i really thought the creator is just making fun of me. McIntyre acts as if he were embedded in a major military operation somewhere in Afghanistan, giving insights that are usually hidden from the public. Yet he is just in the presence of probably the biggest losers England has to offer.

I rate this with two stars, just for some of the pictures shown. Definitely some disturbing and thought provoking stuff. If you make it that far into the movie.

Cheers

Manchester is his own. Dominic Noonan is represented as the "owner" of Manchester in this convincing documentary. It is everything but Hollwood, as thats what it's not to be. He portrays the stereotypical British criminal, although in his sidekicks' own words "I wouldn't say we are criminals." 'A Very British Gangster' says everything that is needed to be known. Very British, very stereotypical British gangster like. Suited up, no matter how cheap they look, their gold chains and rings and just a simple run through of Dominic Noonan's life, exploiting all his plus and negatives, even if you find them all negative, they are all very interesting to find out about.

Recommend, in the eyes of a Media Studies Student.

I'll cast in with those who note that if this man is truly a dangerous criminal--and there are for sure hints of this in the reported trials, allegations, arrests, well-attended family cortèges, and police interest--it isn't with the lot of teenage yobs put forward as his entourage in this perplexingly patchwork mash-note of a documentary. The Godfather mediating bit seems like a load of malarkey on the face of it, and if heavy-duty criminality is going on it is going on comfortably off stage, abetted by the infatuated naiveté of the director who has seriously lost his bearings.

A meaningful documentary could have been constructed around Dominick Noonan and a truer balance of the personality of this superficially engaging reported "gangster' presented if the director had decided, truly decided, for himself, whether Noonan is or is not a heavy-weight criminal. If not, then there really is very little point to the film which becomes a delusional record of a poseur; if so, then the director would have been forced to reassess his raw materials that fail to deliver the goods on providing any actual documentary record of that criminality except through a veil of evasive teasers.