Film Review with Robert Mann – London Boulevard

26th November 2010

London Boulevard *½

As a writer William Monahan is preceded by a somewhat mixed track record. At the height of his game he wrote 2006’s critically acclaimed The Departed but more recently he has been associated with this year’s underwhelming Edge of Darkness.
Suffice to say, the distributor of London Boulevard chose to highlight Monahan’s association with the former film in its marketing. Based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Ken Bruen, London Boulevard sees Monahan making his directorial debut and taking on the British gangster movie, a genre that is full of many classics but also many blunders. What camp does London Boulevard fall into? Sadly, it is the latter.

Mitchell (Colin Farrell) is a South London criminal who has just been released from prison. Greeted on the outside by his friend Billy (Ben Chaplin), he immediately finds himself drawn back towards a criminal life. This, however, is not the life he wants and when he encounters Penny (Ophelia Lovibond), a woman who presents him with an honest job opportunity, he sees the means to begin a life on the straight and narrow. Penny is the best friend of Charlotte (Keira Knightley), a famous movie star who has become reclusive and is constantly being hounded by the paparazzi as her marriage is falling apart and her only companion is assistant Jordan (David Thewlis). The job starts out simply as that of a handyman but it isn’t long before he finds himself becoming a protector of sorts and a romantic connection forms between Mitchell and Charlotte. His criminal past, however, is intent on catching up with him and Mitchell must contend with crime boss Gant (Ray Winstone), who will stop at nothing to make Mitchell become a gangster once again. With himself and those he loves, including his troubled sister Briony (Anna Friel), threatened, Mitchell decides that the only way to start his new life is to give Gant exactly what he wants – become a gangster and take out those who are intent on hurting him.

William Monahan’s future in the film industry is not bright. For his first attempt at directing London Boulevard is an extremely weak, almost pathetic piece of filmmaking and even his writing reaches a new low here. Coming across like an imitation of countless other better crime movies, the storyline is weakly plotted and packed to the brim with clichés and plot holes, the dialogue completely fails to sizzle – Monahan seems to think that having the characters swear a hell of a lot (the c word is thrown about repeatedly) is all it takes to deliver convincing gangster speak, he’s wrong – the characters are poorly drawn and underdeveloped and just seem to be conforming to classic stereotypes – the criminal who wants to go straight, the crime boss who won’t let him, the celebrity tired of being in the spotlight, the alcoholic sister and even a crooked cop (played by Eddie Marsan) – and, for a film that seems to be trying so hard to be serious, it really is difficult to take anything that happens in it seriously. The speed at which the relationship between Mitchell and Charlotte develops, or even the fact that a romance forms between them at all, is entirely implausible, no insight at all being given into how or why they fall for one another and no development of the romance being shown other than them simply not being in love at all one minute and completely the next. And a subplot involving Mitchell out to enact vengeance on the people who killed a friend is hardly explored and only seems present to make some semblance of sense out of the completely unsatisfying conclusion. Simply put, the story is a complete mess, the plot meandering from one scene to the next and the film really starting to drag sometime before the end. In terms of the visuals the film has a lot more to show for itself, the cinematography actually being rather good and there being some distinctive creative flourishes on display but, sadly, these are underserved by the lacklustre writing and not helped by acting that is for the most part just tolerable and nothing more. Colin Farrell’s London accent isn’t very convincing, his native Irish coming through on more than a few occasions, and the fact that he features among a cast of actors who are speaking with London accents that actually do sound authentic only serves to draw greater attention to the fact. And, aside from a spirited performance by Anna Friel, there is little else of note to be found in the cast which, at its lowest level, features several horribly miscast actors, among them Sanjeev Baskar as a doctor who takes a liking to Mitchell’s sister. As a drama, this is a film that completely fails to grip and, with the exception of the good cinematography it is hard to actually suggest anything about this film. There are quite a few really good British gangster movies. London Boulevard is most definitely not one of them.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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