Well, this film’s horns are still pretty sharp.īull screened at the BFI London Film Festival, and is released on 5 November in the UK. What exactly has motivated his revenge-lust? The explanation, when it does emerge, is simultaneously wildly overblown and a little bit anticlimactic. But the difference there is that Carter was trying to find out the truth here, Bull already knows the truth, and we don’t. And there’s Norm firing a sawn-off shotgun in an enclosed space that takes us into a weird slo-mo world where the blast freezes everything with a sickly flare like a flashbulb.Īnd, of course, Bull takes us back to the queasy world of Mike Hodges’s Get Carter, and the crime fiction of Ted Lewis – although Bull is probably even nastier, with his great love of chopping off people’s fingers and limbs with butcher’s knives. There are moments of inspiration that light up this film like flashes of lightning: there’s the assassination Bull carries out at the beginning, with a gun he nonchalantly throws back into his driver’s car afterwards. Now Bull has returned to take a terrible, bloody vengeance on everyone. The escalating dispute led to a horrifying situation with a burning caravan, to which there are traumatised flashbacks. When the relationship broke down, Bull demanded sole custody of his son. But to Bull’s fury, Gemma became a smack addict and a neglectful mother to their adored little boy, and glowering Norm took her side in their many arguments. With his fanatical yet disciplined love of violence, Bull should have been Norm’s favoured employee, especially as he is also his son-in-law, having married Norm’s daughter Gemma (Lois Brabin-Platt), with whom he has a young son. After his son is murdered in a gangland hit, a father must do all he can to protect whats left of his shattered family. Norm and the rest of his crew, including Marco (Jason Milligan), Gary (Kevin Harvey) and Beardy (David Nellist), are sometimes to be found in a greasy spoon, wearing hi-vis tabards, indicating some sort of building-trade front. Bull used to be a London gangland enforcer working for Norm (David Hayman), who, among many unsavoury concerns, runs a dodgy butcher’s business forcing food suppliers to accept his dodgy meat. You don’t expect anything soft and relaxing from Maskell, and you don’t get it. Neil Maskell stars as the titular Bull, and for those of us who have enjoyed this actor’s powerfully charismatic and disturbing performances in the past, particularly in Ben Wheatley’s films, the casting should tip you off. But I have to admit to finding the female characters less interesting than they were in London to Brighton – and opinions might divide about the ending here, which the movie both telegraphs in advance and yet also diverts your attention away from, with a shuffling of the timeline. There are brilliant moments here, and Bull is arguably as good as, say, Shane Meadows’s much-admired Dead Man’s Shoes, in a similarly relentless vein. Retrieved 25 October 2020.Paul Andrew Williams’s revenge nightmare is a stomach-turningly violent gangland shocker that returns this film-maker to territory he first staked out with his 2006 feature debut, the lowlife thriller London to Brighton. " 'Gangster Land' goes soft on crime (and authenticity)". ^ "Gangster Land/In the Absence of Good Men"."Mel Gibson's Son, Milo, Makes Leading Man Debut as Al Capone in 'Gangster Land' Trailer (Exclusive)". "Jason Patric Joins 1920s Mobster Movie 'In the Absence of Good Men' ". "First Look: Milo Gibson Is Al Capone in 'Gangster Land' (Exclusive Image)". "Milo Gibson Playing Al Capone in 'In the Absence of Good Men' (Exclusive)". Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times gave a negative review and wrote, "The ideal audience for Gangster Land would be someone who’s never seen The Untouchables or Boardwalk Empire … or, heck, even Guys and Dolls or Bugsy Malone." References The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a negative review and wrote, "Respectable period production values and some recognizable castmembers are no substitute for imagination in this flat crime flick, which steals freely from its predecessors but offers none of their guilty-pleasure thrills." Small-time hustlers Shanez and Liana land in hot water with a tough Brussels drug dealer after stealing from one of his men. He’s got the perspiration part down surely inspiration can’t hold out much longer." ĭennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a negative review and wrote, "Given the gradually upticking arc of his opuses’ IMDb ratings to date, Woodward should finally score a 6 out of 10 sometime next year. The film has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film was released in theaters and on VOD on December 1, 2017. In June 14, 2017, it was announced that Jason Patric joined the cast of the film. Al Sapienza as Giovanni "Johnny" Torrio.Sean Faris as Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn.
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