Gangster No. 1 - 2000 - 6/10
Freddy, spellbound by beauty onstage, fails to see the hungry gleam in his new recruit’s eye.
Not for the bird, but for Freddy’s clothes, flash, position.
He is ambitious, cold blooded, probably a sociopath.
The gang is a small, disparate bunch, and Freddy seems to be losing focus.
Set in “Swinging London” this evokes the Sixties, instead of offering slavish imitation.
Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell brilliantly channel the same gangster, decades apart.
Stylish, violent, with the blackest of comedy.
