Same Formula. Not The Same Effect

O.K so you've got Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan, guns, boobs and drugs all directed by Nick Love. Now I'm of course by no means saying that all the above are criteria that ensure a decent film, but when you've got the director of "The Football Factory" in charge of such elements and all the various elements have that "raw british gangster film like lockstocklayercakesnatch e.t.c" vibe, then one does expect a film as good as Lock Stock or Layer Cake or Snatch or the Football Factory. For some reason though this picture falls short.

As to why it falls short I'm not too able to put my finger on. I think the major flaw in this film is that it just seems generic. The makers have simply thought "right lets make the baddest British gangster film imaginable!" So they just chucked everything into it; "loadsa coke, loadsa money, loadsa birds and hell lets set it in Spain!" Yes that last one is probably it. If you're going to do a British Gangster film, do it in it Britain, or better still do it in London. I feel the whole point of British gangster films is that they've got a gritty, edgy originality that no all singing all dancing American gangster film is ever going to achieve. It's pretty damn hard to make an edgy film when people are doing predictable things such as poncing around in the sun and driving convertibles! Nick should've thrown an incomprehensible Gypsy into the mix, or how about a bunch of ex-private school cannabis dealers? That's what people really want to see!