A Very British Gangster

I'll cast in with those who note that if this man is truly a dangerous criminal--and there are for sure hints of this in the reported trials, allegations, arrests, well-attended family cortèges, and police interest--it isn't with the lot of teenage yobs put forward as his entourage in this perplexingly patchwork mash-note of a documentary. The Godfather mediating bit seems like a load of malarkey on the face of it, and if heavy-duty criminality is going on it is going on comfortably off stage, abetted by the infatuated naiveté of the director who has seriously lost his bearings.

A meaningful documentary could have been constructed around Dominick Noonan and a truer balance of the personality of this superficially engaging reported "gangster' presented if the director had decided, truly decided, for himself, whether Noonan is or is not a heavy-weight criminal. If not, then there really is very little point to the film which becomes a delusional record of a poseur; if so, then the director would have been forced to reassess his raw materials that fail to deliver the goods on providing any actual documentary record of that criminality except through a veil of evasive teasers.