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Crime Waves

Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome
  • Posted at 4:30pm
  • 05 October 2007
  • by AndrewCollins-RT

I sincerely hope you missed the instalment of BBC2’s British Film Forever devoted to thrillers, in particular the extended section on London to Brighton. For a debut feature released last year to merit so much airtime in the company of Brighton Rock, Get Carter and The Long Good Friday is testament to its power and instant modern classic status. Unfortunately — an irksome habit of the series — they blatantly gave away the ending.

In the film, written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams, big-hearted prostitute Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) and juvenile runaway Joanne (Georgia Groome) escape London’s seedy underworld after a violent incident to the cleansing sea air of Brighton, pursued by the textbook scummy middle-man and his evil boss.

London to Brighton may tick time-honoured gangster-movie boxes, but its sheer energy pumps new life into a genre habitually rumoured to be dead. Since Brighton Rock’s menacing English coastal take on protection rackets and bumping-off back in 1947, British gangster flicks have faded in and out of vogue, but since the 80s, and with the rise of laddism and 60s nostalgia, we’ve seen a renaissance.

While Mona Lisa (which also shuttled from London to Brighton), The Krays, Gangster No 1 and Sexy Beast stand out, Guy Ritchie’s fresh and stylised Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels spawned numerous pale imitations — not least his own follow-up, Snatch.

Let’s hope Paul Andrew Williams has brought some seriousness back into the genre that has once again survived market saturation. Even Canadian director David Cronenberg is getting in on the act: his next film Eastern Promises (released later in 2007) is a London-set gangster film. And in 2008 we’re due another one to add to the cannon — RocknRolla, directed by . . . Guy Ritchie!

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