Gangsters, Guns & Zombies

I was looking forward to see this UK zombedy. Comedy coming out of the UK is mostly always big fun. Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009), Doghouse (2009) were fun but sadly this one here I can't add to that list. It all looked so well from the start but the further you move into this flick the worser it get.

The funny parts just doesn't work and adding a bit of romance made it all boring too. The first minutes did work when a bunch of gangsters are confronted with zombies but after a while we do see the same again and again. The acting was mediocre. Things what should be funny (the part with the grandma and stepdaughter) wasn't funny at all. I must say that some shots were nicely done like the camera added on a gun while shooting a zombie looked great and even reminded me of The Evil dead (1981). What bothered me the most was the use of CGI for blood in some shots.

When the end credits are running you can see that they had fun making this flick, sadly it wasn't funny for the viewer. It did had all elements to make it absurd but it never did. It's like the title says, it's about gangsters, they do use guns and sometimes there are zombies running around and attacking but the cohesion between the three wasn't there.

Gore 2/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 1/5

Briefly said, a van full of bank robbers have their getaway complicated by the oncoming zombie holocaust.

This movie was a pleasant surprise for me. I was expecting a B movie. Especially since I found the title on a list of 'B' thrillers. What I found was a very well done flick that fit my mood to a tee.

First thing to note is this is clearly in Guy Ritchie style (as in Lock Stock or Snatch). Now there is a fine line between cheap knock off, spoof and tribute. It mostly depends on how faithfully a style is recreated and it's underlying quality. The Ritchie style hits you right from the opening credits. Slick graphic credits interrupting brisk action sequences while the protagonist narrates, followed up by a by a cast of stereotypical British gangsters, each introduced by the narrator. It's a good imitation and I rate it a tribute. If you aren't fond of Rithchie's style you won't like this one either.

I found the characters amusing, original and endearing (you gotta love grandma). Moreover, I was pleasantly surprised at the overall quality. Direction, cinematography, acting, writing, sound all above par. Well, one exception. If you are making a zombie movie, it might be judicious to employ the services of a make-up artist. Or, at the very least, insist that your extras pay a visit to the local costume shop at their own expense.

It would be easy to criticize the finale which seems more like a cast party than a conclusion. But, think about it, there's only one end to a zombie flick. The zombies kill everyone. Isn't that what's meant by Apocalypse?

If you took the trouble to search for this title, the answer is "Yes". Well worth a look see.

Having just robbed a bank six men are in the process of getting away when a zombie outbreak occurs and dramatically changes their immediate plans. Since one of their members has been shot the leader of the group named "Tony" (Huggy Leaver) makes the decision to take their wounded comrade to the hospital. Unfortunately, the zombie outbreak has devastated that area and so they are forced to bring him back into the van and continue driving. Yet even though their vehicle takes them outside of the city limits they continue to see the havoc brought on by zombies well into the countryside. And with fatigue and lack of food and fuel beginning to become an issue they soon realize that they desperately need to make it to their safehouse soon. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that for an ultra low-budget project this film turned out to be somewhat of a surprise. For starters, I thought that the plot was adequately suspenseful and the acting reasonably solid. Additionally, unlike so many low-budget films today, the director (Matthew Mitchell) decided not to take the easy route and make something "so bad it's good" and tried to produce something a bit better instead. To that end, the humor and dialogue wasn't nearly as crude. On the flip side, however, the audio wasn't as sharp as it could have been and the extras (used predominately as "the zombies") lacked the necessary makeup which really hurt the film as a whole. That being said, while I admired the manner in which the director used the scant resources available, the flaws were too noticeable to be ignored and for that reason I have rated this film accordingly. Slightly below average.

Having finished a bank robbery and on the run in the countryside, a group of robbers find that the area is overrun by the victims of a deadly zombie virus and have to fight off the creatures in order to get away safely.

As far as zombie films go, this one was quite decent enough and certainly has enough going for it. One of the better elements is the fact that the running zombies are utilized right in here for one of the only times in their existence, for they still shuffle about with lethargy at times and really seem to be outmaneuvered with ease if the situation was enabling them to hide away from the creatures, yet whenever they spotted their victims the zombies were able to run them down and overwhelm them with their numbers. This is what makes them quite effective, when there's a way out yet they can overpower to generate the kill. There's also some rather fine action scenes that come from these encounters, with a forest encounter with live-action role players in medieval knight-gear, a gas station ambush and an assault on a small house in the countryside being the biggest scenes to make for some fine action moments here and there, while the finale at the dockyard is good if quite brief and could've been stretched out a little more. There's still some flaws here, as a running gag with the group finding passers-by on the roads and keep going only to see them get fed to zombies just after doing so get old after the fourth time it happens as the gag doesn't go anywhere, the make-up effects in general look really bad as the zombies are just outfitted with fangs and blood-shot eyes to denote their zombie-ness and as a comedy, this really fails since it constitutes everyone cursing at one another for it's jokes, which is just lame. Overall, though, there's enough here to like to outweigh the negatives.

Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

Alright, well first of all forget all about the DVD cover, because it is putting it on thickly, selling a product that is quite far from what you see on the DVD cover. That being said, then don't get me wrong, because this is not an all together bad movie. Sure there are far better zombie movies available, but there are also far worse zombie movies available.

So why doesn't "Gangsters, Guns & Zombies" stand out in the zombie genre? Well, simply put, because it delivers nothing and once the movie is finished you shrug your shoulders and think 'what was the purpose of this movie?' For a zombie movie, then there wasn't much gore or rot in the movie. It was initially a clone of "28 Days Later", just in a scaled-down version. And the zombies were fast, agile runners with some very red blood splattered on their faces. And given the total lack of rot and decay, I can only assume that this movie is taking place early on in an apocalyptic dead rising in England.

The acting in the movie was adequate, but I can't really say that there was anything outstanding or memorable here. Which just added fuel to the mediocrity of the movie.

As a huge fan of all things zombie, I buy just about anything I come across that involve the shambling, rotting dead, and truth be told, then my collection holds a great many numbers of movies that have been watched once and will most likely never be watched again, as they failed to impress. And I must admit that "Gangsters, Guns & Zombies" is going to fall into that group. It just didn't impress in any way. (Perhaps maybe aside from the cheap price on the Amazon market place.)

The DVD cover blatantly brandished "zombie lovers are in for a bloody treat!" - yeah, alright. I wonder what movie that reviewer was watching, because it couldn't rightfully be "Gangsters, Guns & Zombies". For hardcore fans of the zombie genre, "Gangsters, Guns & Zombies" is worth watching once, and that is about it for this movie - sadly.