User reviews

Craig Fairbrass' gave a strong performance. It's unfortunate that this is such an unoriginal plot and quite overused, in my humble opinion. This is still well worth a watch though, especially to see a surprisingly magnificent performance by Izuka Hoyle. Although, she is a virtual unknown, I expect it won't be for too much longer. She was only in a few scenes but she gave a riveting performance especially in her final scene. She is beautiful and very talented. In spite of an over used plot and storyline, you will find yourself rooting for Craig's character early on in this movie. Thanks to this talented actors ability to draw you into his character to empathize with him.

There are absolutely hundreds of British gangster movies released over the years . Most have a terrible looking posters and bad acting to match . Villain has the awful looking poster but the film itself is not bad at all.

After 10 years, Eddie Franks is out of prison and trying to stay on the straight and narrow, but his drug-mule brother Sean has other ideas. Rival gangster brothers are demanding Sean repay his debt to them, causing Eddie to get tangled in the crossfire.

There is nothing particularly new about the story in Villian but it's the acting that makes this a cut above the usual gangster fodder .

Craig Fairbrass doesn't just look the part , he can act . It's not just the violent scenes that he does well , it's the quiet, emotional ones too . He shares a few screen moments with a young actress called Izuka Hoyle ( Chloe) and they are very impressive together .

This does have the violence and strong language you would expect but it's not as gratuitous as you might expect and overall I was pleasantly surprised with Villain.

I just went ahead and walked right into this one without even checking the reviews first or anything because it sounded like a good plot. I wasn't disappointed. It can be a little predictable at times, but it will toss a few curve balls that you probably aren't gonna expect. Its pretty solid. I think its definitely worth a watch if you enjoy this type of movie.

We've seem it before but this one has a little more emotion around family values, bad life decisions and the darkside of the culture.

It's not dressed up as badass look at me leading role but more of a man that genuinely wants out of the game but just can't.

I don't know why the average score is low. I thought this was a great film. Shame about the ending as could've been follow up films, but nevertheless great story and Craig Fairbrass is mustard in it. Not original in terms of storyline, but I really enjoyed it.

I've worked on a set with Craig before, and I found him entirely unpleasant to be around with how he was talking to the crew. I was just an extra so quietly backed away. But it was enough of a lasting impression to make me actively avoid anything he is a part of.

Bored, surfing Netflix, the streaming service started playing a scene from Villain and I rolled my eyes hard. Here we go, another "Craig is a hard-man" film but... Watching the scene play out, his acting was decent. It wasn't the same old, same old we have come to expect from him. Sure there are scenes where we get the same Craig we see in every other production he is in but there's enough "new" acting from him that it keeps you pulled along.

And just as well because, as much as it pains me to say it, it IS Craig who carries this film. The other actors are good, don't get me wrong, but they're screen time is considerably shorter. They are all believable and flesh out the small part of the world we're shown but, they don't hang around for long. Then we are left with the story; something we have seen a million times before.

In summary: guy gets out of prison, vowing to never go back. His brother is in trouble with local criminals and, so, Craig is pulled back into the seedier side of life. That it is. Nothing original here but it is, at least, done well. Shots are nice, colour grading gritty, sound decent enough and Craig really pulls it all along.

Will I watch it again? No. Does it make me change my mind about what I've seen of Craig? Not a chance. But it did at least show me that while he might be hot-headed on set, at least there is some range there.

I like gangster films. I thought this was an ok gangster film. If you have seen Carlitos Way then you have pretty much seen this film, albeit in a more glossy American setting.

Craig Fairbrass can act, so no surprises here. One of his best performances along with a tight screenplay and good supporting roles make this a better than most British gangster movie.

I don't write many reviews, but I watch a lot of films. This is a solid film, from start to finish. Have crime tragedies been done before? Of course, but this one is good. Fairbrass is moving as the strong, regretful criminal getting long in the tooth. I won't give it all away, but it's worthy of your time, for get the low rating.

You'll pretty much know everything that's going to happen before you actually watch it take place.

Solid movie, good casting, well played parts. Not a major blockbuster circus, clear and precise story.

For all of us who likes the revenge films, even on the most extreme allas dismembering the enemy litterally speaking makes you feel good. a sick thought but this is the kind. it has a bit of bronson and the quite look -alike american actor that i cant remember the name of , he is a taek-won-do champ in real life, that stands up for the family and friends whether its a good or bad choice. its the kind of anti-matter -hero that lurkes in the back allies in the wasted parts of the big city ,and the essex area of good old england, that follows the thin red line of gangster/mobster and hooligan inspired flicks made since the early 80's

ive seen craig fairbrass et company in a lot of films lately, and this one are among the better considering acting and story so there for its a recommend from the grumpy old man. just beware, its not for the small ones, my wife would shadowed away quite fast, and you should be able to handle blood and gore, and a whole lot of bad language to watch this flick and genre.

its better than the previous marbella, but couldve been even better if the economic wings had been larger, but its worth the look

This well-trod genre has been done better (see my review of 'The Gentlemen' and worse (see my review of 'Once Upon A Time In London'.

Craig Fairbrass plays a proper, old-school hard-man from the old neighborhood. The critics liked this better than the viewers, but I think the viewers got it right. I think the daughter/grandson plot line was a bridge too far and it could have used a much better soundtrack.

A cliche', cringe worthy embarrassing ending. The movie had promise, but the writers dropped the ball. I'm amazed when writers make endings so predictable. How can they do it with a straight face? If you end up watching this movie, you'll see what I mean. You're better off watching something else though.

There are so many British crime films and many of them are quite poor, bad acting, violence for the sake of violence with little plot or character investment

Villain is a bit of surprise, the acting from everyone here is really strong, in fact this film may have discovered a couple of stars. Craig Fairbass' character is not just a straight forward "villain", he carries some real leverage with him, you get invested, he wants to make amends for his mistakes, he wants to be there for his family and is dragged back into violence against his better judgment.

Yes there is some silly and unrealistic violence but all in all this was a really pleasant surprise, I tend to watch tv series as you have more time to invest in plot & characters, I would've been happy to watch a series on these characters.

Also the actress that plays chloe could be a star.

Dark London gangster tripe with a very good performance from Fairbrass and supporting cast. Pretty grisly and raw.

The whole movie is far too predictable, once you start watching you will easily know what will happen next, definitely not worth making an effort to watch.

Throughout the whole film I was pretty impressed as this genuinely had a lot more substance than most typical British crime films. I genuinely was very drawn, right until the end I could easily have rated this a 7.5 which is very high in my opinion for a film of this genre. Unfortunately, then came the ending... was so cliche and predictable unlike the rest of the film, we called it before the last few minutes and we where right... I can't emphasize how disappointed I was as there where so many potential endings which would've been much for fitting. Probably still is worth a watch, as long as you can deal with a extremely bad ending, maybe just pause the film 10 mins before the ending....

I know everyone is getting tired of low budget British gangster movies. There are now probably more low budget British gangster movies than there are actual British gangsters.

The difference is that this movie stars Craig Fairbrass. If you're a fan, you've probably had to answer the question "Who's Craig Fairbrass?" a few times. He's been in some pretty good movies, but it's more likely that you tell people about the cool character that he played in a bad movie. There's no shame in watching movies like Devil's Playground if you're in the mood for some gory fun. However, movies like that aren't going to win any prestigious awards, and they're not even going to be wild crowd-pleasers.

Villain is the kind of movie that I could send people to and say, "That's why I like Craig Fairbrass." Instead of just sleepwalking through the movie like some actors might have done, he gives Villain's protagonist, Eddie, a real personality. You can tell that Eddie's made some bad decisions, and he's not done making them. He leaves prison swearing that he's never going to return, but the title of the movie should be enough to let you know that it's just going to take one bad day before his true nature takes over.

In a sense, that makes this movie a tragedy. Despite quite explicitly being labeled as a villain, Eddie isn't really a bad person. If you ignore a few inconvenient facts, you can justify his actions along with him. That makes it easy to follow his descent, a bit gratifying to see him take down people even worse than him, and frustrating to watch his life play out like the Fates are controlling it. That's the thing about this script, though: it may be a bit cliched at times, but it couldn't really play out radically differently while keeping true to the character. Eddie is simply not going to make the kind of decisions that would alter this story.

Recommended mostly for fans of Craig Fairbrass. There's a reason why he's the only character on the poster. The other actors are good, but it's mostly his show.