Looters, Tooters and Sawn-Off Shooters

The story of Charlie and Cheltham is a story which could be based on a true story in the murky London criminal scene. It is raw and gritty and is what it is! Full of action, drama and a sprinkling of suspense. A film made from the heart and soul of the King family and the dedication of all the leads and supporting actors who spent many months dedicated to ensuring the film came to fruition. I am no critic but like any film buff you will notice the strong points and the weak points. There was some excellent acting from actors who have never been trained and found themselves in at the deep end working alongside some well know faces from the TV, film and music industry. This could make its way into one of the top cult British Gangster films. A very big well done to all involved.

Loud mouthed plastic wannabee gangsters poor story line which jumps all over the place. The viewer simply cant follow what is going on or which characters have done what to whom.Poor acting has hindered any real enjoyment even for fans of the Gangster genre.If some time and more thought had of been given to casting to gain just one or two good actors this would of been better.Unfortunately what we have here a multitude of mismatched characters to further confuse the story played by as it seems anyone who turned up on the day. The lines were delivered with no real conviction leaving the film feeling flat with no real impact

Inspired to write my first post not to be spiteful as has been suggested but to express MY opinion. Maybe making a movie with no budget and inexperienced actors could be somebody's dream but that doesn't mean that a) it's any good and b) it is necessary that it should be viewed. I watch movies to have have my suspension of disbelief reengaged and to be entertained. All this did was chew up some of my existence in the space time continuum. This was the worst movie I have seen for a long while. As a fan of the "Lock Stock' movie I thought this would be worth a view too. It wasn't. As pointed out it was made with no budget and how it shows. Thin plot ( generous ) and pretty average acting. Facial expressions limited to the range shown by Summer Glau in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I liked btw, ( i.e. robot like ). Spoilt my evening. Do not bother.

This film is a perfect example of what happens when a deluded collective of people get together and think because they have seen a lot of gangster films , that they decide on a whim...... " Oh, I'll knock up a screenplay - get it done and filmed and out there ". Without learning any craft. Writing, film-making or acting - whatsoever.

So in this respect - we have a film based on an idea, not a story.

I understand from reading the boards that this was made without a budget. That is fair enough - but this is not the point . There is absolutely no excuse for this. It's the content which is the issue here.

It lacks story. It lacks structure. It lacks emotion. It's just an awful clichéd montage of clips.

I had to turn it off. I could not connect with a single character, the only thing I was compelled to do was switch it off.

I feel utterly duped and angry that I spent my hard earned money on this. Furious in fact - My teenage son begged me to buy it from the supermarket - duped into buying it as It did have an eye catching cover, and my son is a fan of the genre.

Save your money. Avoid at all costs. Don't be fooled like me.

I also understand that the producers are very precious about their film, ( I have just been skim reading the reviews etc here. ) That is understandable. But as a Filmmaker you have a responsibility surely to produce credible work for your intended audience???

I created an IMDb account and have written this review as I could not get a refund - and wish to save someone else the utter frustration I have had to endure.

This is an embarrassment and and insult to British filmmaking.

After seeing HOOLGANS AT WAR which is in my opinion the worst British film I've seen in a very long time if not ever I thought I might be suffering pangs of conscience . As soon as I wrote my review people who had never worked on that film no siree thought I'd been disingenuous to a degree seeing as the other reviewers who couldn't possibly have worked on that film in any capacity whatsoever guv thought HOOLIGANS AT WAR was more deserving of a nine or ten rating . These same people also highly rated a movie with a mouthful of title LOTTERS , TOOTERS AND SAWN OFF SHOOTERS which suspiciously has an overlapping cast . I came on to this page and found yet another host of people were rating this one while claiming the positive reviews could only have been written by shills . Let's be honest here , these type of reviews are easy to spot , but if there's a chance that any movie could possibly be worse than HOOLIGANS AT WAR this might just be the one

To be fair LOOTERS is nothing more than a mediocre British crime flick but to be fair it's nothing less than this also . It does have a student film look about it but to give the director(s) the benefit of the doubt this might be trying to emulate realist cinema . Certainly you can't say it looks like it was filmed on a mobile phone . It's not a glamorous film either and does show the fall out to innocent people that violence brings and once somebody decides to impulsively take that road they find it's very difficult to leave due to other people . The subtext doesn't entirely work as presented here

The whole screenplay needed a bit more development especially the insults and one liners which momentarily seem amusing when written down but across as annoying on screen and also shows signs of purple prose . What realthings down is that the actors just aren't good enough and with a better cast it could been a much better film . As it stands it's just mediocre