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28 reviews in total

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10 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Hypocrisy., 13 February 2004

Author: Kate Smith

'Charlie' (Malcolm Needs, 2004)

What irritates me the most about 'Charlie' is the hypocrisy of its argument. The makers of the film fawningly present Richardson as a good decent and innocent man. Why, then, do they revel in showing his vicious criminal activity? The message of this film gets lost in the midst of pretentious formal tics and the most embarrassing courtroom scenes committed to celluloid. For English film culture, all this film represents is sad proof that for every Sam Mendes, there's a Malcolm Needs.

Come on Blighty, we can do better than this!

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10 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
A decent, brutal and funny film!, 13 October 2004

Author: anthonysamuel from Bedford, England

I was not expecting much from this film after the reviews I have read. However, I was very surprised to find myself thoroughly enjoying this film.

It is a very English film with some fantastic dark humour. I particularly liked the part where he is to be conscripted into the British Army.

I am not concerned at all as to the historical correctness of the film as it is not claiming to be a documentary. Although, even if only 10% of the tales are vaguely correct then it gives you some idea what life was like for The Krays and Co.

The acting was 'real' and the choice of Luke Goss to play Charlie turned out to be a very good one in my opinion.

Give it a try - but don't watch it with your Granny!

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Charlie, 27 March 2006

Author: miss_ghoulscout666 from United Kingdom

This has to be rated a 10/10 cos it is an excellent movie. Although there were some parts that were changed or exaggerated on it is almost true to what actually happened!! Most of the actors that played the characters look similar to the actual people involved in the gang. I have read my uncle Eddies' book and my mum has told me all about what happened (as she forbids me from seeing Charlie who is in fact her dad) and the film is rather true to it all. Glad to see my Grandad made such an everlasting impact on Britain! I hope all others that have seen it enjoyed it as much as i do. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone who is interested in The Richardson gang. But really i recommend it to everyone i no.

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Great book, shame about the film..., 20 April 2004
Author: (adamjwlane@yahoo.co.uk) from Stafford, England

I first picked up Charlie Richardsons book ' My Manor' a few years ago, and, as the review by 'Punch' said, its a fantastic read. Its extremely witty, hard hitting and sensitive at the same time with an excellent perspective on how stupidly rigid society can be. It provided an excellent insight into his life - all in all propelling me and my girlfirend to drive miles to the first cinema that cropped up in the paper that had its sneak preview.

A wasted journey? Nearly. The film contained none of Charlie's wicked sense of humour, satire and dark wit. It was structured by different characters standing up in court to speak out against Charlie, with snapshots of his life/adventures in between. Good idea in theory but it just didnt work. Luke Goss [ a good actor in my opinion] looked like a Michael Fabricant fresh from a holiday scorcher in Gran Canaria with that daft haircut and perma-tan. His shirts were even worse. No favours done.

What really dampened its attempt at portraying a genuine South London snapshot of 60's gangland was the accents of the actors. Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep would have been mortified to hear the 'cockney' accents, which sounded more like your average citizen from Sydney, Australia. They were just trying far too hard.

There were a few flashes of quality, for example the scene where train robber to be Charlie Wilson arrives at the scrap yard to pepper their office with shotgun pellets. Charlie and his brother Eddie are in hysterics [ and i mean laughing not crying] in the office, and hide Wilson from the police who arrive at the scrap yard after hearing the racket.

See it if you must, but i recommend the book. Save the petrol.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
So, who was this guy again?, 15 December 2011

Author: MBunge from Waterloo, Iowa

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is an extremely stylish and complicated film that makes too many assumptions and takes too little creative license. It assumes the viewer already knows a great deal about infamous 1960s British gangster Charlie Richardson and his even more infamous trial for leading a "torture gang". And as it's structurally all over the map, bouncing back and forth through time and between distinctly different versions of Charlie and his fellow criminals, it refuses to organize his life into any sort of dramatic, thematic or emotional narrative. I came away from this movie with very little understanding of who the main character was or why he was important enough to merit a film about his life.

If you're going to watch this, you should be familiar enough with 1960s crime in Britain to remember both The Great Train Robbery and Charlie's criminal rivals, the Krays. Otherwise, you'll get buried under a blizzard of bewildering references and allusions. Even if you've seen the movies made about his contemporaries, you'll be left somewhat in the dark about Charlie's criminal activities, which are left largely nebulous except for the torture allegations and the film makes those out to be lies and exaggerations. Despite an electrifying performance by Luke Goss as the title character, this motion picture flounders about in the vague and fragmented nature of Charlie and his misadventures.

For example, the single most interesting thing about this story is when Charlie is enlisted by the government of South African to break in and steal the files of anti-Apartheid organizations in London. It builds up to Charlie being asked to spy on the British Prime Minister and then…the whole thing goes away. As presented here, it's not at all clear if Charlie agreed to spy or declined and what happened after either decision. The subplot is just thrown out there and then taken away, both without a resolution or any sense of what it's supposed to say about Charlie and his era.

Writer/director Malcolm Needs also should have chosen to either tell the story of Charlie's life and basically end it with his arrest and trial or tell the story of the trial itself. Instead, he tries to treat each as entirely separate bits of cinema which are intertwined but never blended. If you presented the trial scenes and the rest of the movie individually, you'd think you were watching competing productions of the same story which strangely starred the same guy. It's like seeing segments of Wyatt Earp and Tombstone that have been spliced together with Kevin Costner's face superimposed on Kurt Russell's body.

I always enjoy the working class sensibility of British crime flicks and that comes through here as well. American storytelling imbues law breaking with a transgressive quality that is absent across the pond. The Brits present crime as another vocation, like being a baker or a plumber or a bricklayer, and the criminals aren't outlaws but recognized members of their larger society. That's made clear by how the torture allegations against Charlie and company are treated. Such behavior wouldn't be seen as excessive among American thugs, even in the 1960s, but this film presents those acts as so bizarre and extraordinary that they violate the social compact which tolerates "regular" thievery and violence.

Besides Goss' impressive work, this movie also has a machine gun pace of short, energetic scenes and nicely recreates the looser feel of a bigger and less regulated world. Its failure to define its main character and decide what's the most important thing about him, however, leave it marginally unsatisfying. I wouldn't warn you away from Charlie, but you might want to do some homework before giving it a look.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
A nasty little film about nasty little people, 27 August 2010
Author: sunznc from Santa Monica, California

The film is about Charlie Richardson and briefly talks about the Kray Twins, the inspiration for James Fox's character in Performance. Organized crime in London.

The film doesn't really offer anything we haven't seen before though. Nothing new here. There are some fairly interesting moments here and there but the producer and director seem to want to focus more on the torture scenes. These scenes are the boldest.

The rest is tired stuff we've seen in 100 other films prior to this. Be better off watching Performance. At least there is more style to that- more imagination. This is actually pretty dry.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
a good true-crime biography, but a little bit thin on details, 2 March 2006

Author: mitchum_unscented from United States

The strengths of this movie are Luke Goss as the Charlie, and the truth, or at least believability, of the history. The film shifts back and force between Charlie's life as he tells it, and as it is portrayed by the prosecution during his trial. In one version he is respectable thief, stealing primarily from the government, and all-around nice guy. In the other he is a viscous sadist, torturing anyone who displeases him. In both versions he is charming, clever, and competent.

The movie's main weakness is the way that the story skips through small events without ever giving you the big picture. None of the other characters are developed much, and you don't see the progress of his relationships with the other gang members nor how he builds his business. Although the film is only 95 minutes long, it feels longer because it crams so many short scenes in. But because the scenes are disconnected and repetitive, it misses much of the story.

If the film was fiction, I wouldn't have enjoyed it, but as a true story it is fascinating.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Don't expect to sympathise ... expect to be impressed, 15 March 2005

Author: Theonlygwen from Amiens, France

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I first saw Luke Goss acting in Blade 2, and considering the make up he had on I guess that was quite an exploit I thought "hey that one's acting real good !" That's how I landed on Charlie, which came unadvertised in France, besides the fact that the characters it is based on are utterly unknown here. I gave a 10/10 to this film mainly because of the acting. On the whole, the "trial-structure" with flashbacks is quite conventional, yet the filming and the scenario are well-knit, and as regards the image, the contrast between the British greys and blue tones with the blinding and warm colours of South Africa are particularly well conveyed. One does not escape a feeling of unease since virtually NO message is conveyed. Through positive and mainly negative people talking about Charlie Richardson and the flash back scenes, the viewer is maintained at a certain distance of the character. I guess that's the reason why many viewers consider this movie as a failure : it does not seek sympathy and simply presents scenes of which we are not really told how true they are. There is virtually no personal insight in Charlie Richardson's personality, only a patchwork of different scenes, personal and criminal, and even the comments the actor makes do not convey a personal impact. This is maybe the force of this film : though not claiming for a documentary dimension, it does achieve the effect by its coldness. If it's on purpose, that's brilliant As far as the acting is concerned, the whole cast is regularly good, and Luke Goss is outstanding. As pointed out in other comments, he impersonates Charlie Richardson with great passion and does convey an impression of grim humour and dangerousness, with complexity. I would add that Charlie Richardson himself approved of his being cast for the role on meeting him, and "fell for the guy".

By the way, as for those who would like to know, yes, even with this hairstyle, he is damn hot :P ( sorry, one remains a human being, even before a gangster movie :)

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3 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Some like it, some hate it. I loved it!, 12 February 2004

Author: Sam Bridger from London, England

After reading the polarised critics reactions I had to go and see it for myself. Overall I was impressed. On the upside I thought it well acted, especially by Goss and Curran, and pacy with some original scenes. The sound track also worked well with the film. On the downside one or two of the scenes looked a little hurried and it may have benefitted from more of a traditional story line approach. This may have been the result of it being an independent so possibly having limited funds. It's a pity it is only being shown in London as this one will, I think, stand the test of time.

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It's a stones throw away....., 1 May 2013

Author: FlashCallahan from Leicester, United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The film tries to tell the story of the titular character using the medium of talking heads and centering the narrative around a trial.

And while it works for the most part, it loses it's way and just turns into The Krays meets Buster, via the early days of Eastenders.

Goss is surprisingly really good as Charlie, and carries the film far beyond the expectations I had for this.

It does feature all the troupes you should expect from a typical brit gangster film though.

the torture scenes involving electric cables attached to certain body parts.

There are always segments in the film where the main characters go to another country and make a deal and fall in love with someones wife.

Plus we have special guest appearances from prolific actors and soap stars to add gravitas to appeal to the working classes and those who are more acquainted to the theatre.

It's all good fun though while it lasts, but it's forgettable, and I'm not surprised it didn't do well on initial release.

it's for you if you like true stories about naughty criminals from yesteryear, and the film makers making them look like heroes.

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