Gatwick Gangsters

Hilarious movie I think it was badly made. Can't believe I paid money for it.

Sally Clack is a true dreamweaver, Gatwick Gangsters is a masterpiece in storytelling. A lot of "film makers" talk big about breaking rules and boundaries...but when it comes to the crunch they're exposed as the cowards they are. Sally (aka Shampagne tm) on the other hand breaks all film making rules with a strength of character and the result is an FULL FORCE explosion of cinematic majesty! The performances in this film are exceptionally strong with an all star cast (Dave Courtney, Willie Thorne, Gary Bushell to name but a few). The storyline is gripping from start to finish and the violence is NON-STOP! This is a must have for any collector.

I knew this was going to be a stinker going in, but I just love me some zero budget British rubbish. It was a lot worse. The plot is just all over the place. Everyone is backstabbing, kidnapping everyone, killing people. God knows who is who and who is currently feeding with who. The thing is ugly as sin too. The editing is probably the worst thing ever. There's this fake lense flare filter that is put over every scene that looks like no lense flare that has ever flared ever. Willie Thorne, the old snooker player, is some kind of drug dealer. There's darts players in this too and of course Dave Cortney. Atrocious.

I love terrible movies. They help me realize just how much work goes into a really good movie and also deters a wannabe like myself into thinking I can make something as good as Scorcese or Kubrick. If anything, with the resources I have I'm most likely going to end up with something like this.

As a dirty yank across the pond and definitely not the person this was intended for, this film is just ghastly and incomprehensible. This could be Shakespeare but the hell if I would ever know because the sound design is so terrible, its impossible to understand. For American audiences, do you remember the film Trainspotting and the scene where Ewan Bremner is so incomprehensible due to his thick accent they had to put subtitles (or did they re-dub his voice, I can't remember any more). This movie desperately needed this, and its not just because everyone had thick accents in this movie, it's also because the music in the background sometimes exceeds the levels of the dialogue. Also it's obvious the microphones were not equipped for the varying levels of loudness the dialogue gets into. There could be a great story hidden amongst the noise of the sound design, but to heck if I know because it sounds like a teacher dragging nails against a chalkboard.

The rest of the movie is standard bad movie fair. Terrible pacing, incomprehensible plotting and some turns which seemed completely random at the end. This is all supposed to be happening within a day? You got to be kidding me!

I will say bravo to the primary intellectual force behind this film, which I want to believe is Shampagne herself. After years of seeing less than attractive men and doughy dad bods passing themselves off as badasses and lotharios in their vanity projects, it's nice to see a woman be front and center in her own incomprehensible ego stroke where all the men want to "shag" her. Piece of advice Shampagne. You're better than that. Get better looking men! I wouldn't say no to a date with you! Of course, this might break the illusion of Gatwick being a working class kinda town, but it's not like we are giving in to realism here. I mean, those Mi6 agents looked like they never skipped the buffet.

Where was I going with this review. I don't know. Watch this film on Vimeo. I rented it after hearing about it on Good Bad or Bad Bad. I couldn't believe how terrible it was. Am I better for having seen it? I don't know. I sure hope so.

If that lensflare isn't enough though, would you prefer day for night? It comes in the wonderful colors of brown and purple and is around for most of the movie. The whole movie is just seriously ugly.

But honestly... I barely even can call this a movie, because there is just no way to understand it. Here's one scene, there's the next, and another one, but nothing is connected. They seemingly jump through times and places and the best you sometimes get is a subtitle telling me about a person we are about to meet. And later these subtitles also get subtitles, telling us what is supposed to happen, but even that doesn't help.