Kelly WandLeague of Gentlemen
October 9th 2006 04:44
“The League of Gentlemen” is one of the great British Films of its era. It is the most British of films but the least British in attitude. Much of the grit we came to know from British television in the nineteen seventies began here.
In this film, the stiff upper lip spirit has been twisted out of shape. A Colonel, made redundant by the army, gathers a group of dishonourably discharged officers together to employ their military skills to commit a massive bank robbery. The men he chooses aren’t lovable rogues, they’re vermin left to forage on the edge of society.
They live off of rich old women or play piano in clubs. They rig poker machines to make even more minimal pay outs or they sell cheap porno magazines. The script hints at homosexuality. Most interestingly, the film doesn’t judge. It’s not long before we don’t just understand these men’s motive, we sympathise and find ourselves rooting on the sidelines. Go, robbers, go!
It doesn’t hurt the film that we have seen these men in a hundred gung ho British war epics. It only makes sense that former heroes could find little use for their skills when conflict ended. The characters these famous Thespians now play are men who went to fight in a war for a country that had no need or particular liking for them. I’m sure it touched a raw nerve with British audiences still living with the dregs of post war austerity. There is a joyous feeling of anarchy that bubbles up through the picture. These men know what they want, they know how to do it and they succeed in doing it.
It doesn’t hurt that these men bond into a little community of their own. They find their place together amongst others who understand them. They overcome suspicions and fall into a light hearted camaraderie and we fall in there with them.
The two major robbery sequences are superbly handled. There is a hard boiled edge to the action that British cinema lacked. It was fairly unusual to see a British urban movie where men waved big guns around and looked like they knew how to use them.
The director, Basil Dearden, employs nail biting tension rather than explosive action to achieve his goals but that’s not to say lessons had not been drawn from American cinema. However, in many ways, the lessons learnt were filtered to far better ends. Compare this film to the similarly themed “Ocean’s Eleven” (starring Frank Sinatra) and “League” wins hands down.
Every heist film made after this owes something to this movie including “Reservoir Dogs” and “Dead Presidents”. That doesn’t mean the film seems stale. On the contrary, it is surprisingly fresh given its vintage.
Of course, it all goes belly up in the final couple of minutes. What is surprising is how ridiculous the capture is. Even in these days of computer cross referencing, the police would have been unable to leap to the kinds of conclusions they are able to leap to here. Little boys and constables collecting licence plates on scraps of paper? Do me a favour. Whilst it seems like the film is saying that crime doesn’t pay and that your tiniest mistakes will find you out in the end, there is a little voice saying “the cops would not have a frigging clue; give it a go, you mug!”
Whilst full credit must go the acting skills of Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick and Richard Attenborough, the show is stolen by a twenty second mincing cameo by Oliver Reed. Actors take their work where ever they can get it.
In this film, the stiff upper lip spirit has been twisted out of shape. A Colonel, made redundant by the army, gathers a group of dishonourably discharged officers together to employ their military skills to commit a massive bank robbery. The men he chooses aren’t lovable rogues, they’re vermin left to forage on the edge of society.
They live off of rich old women or play piano in clubs. They rig poker machines to make even more minimal pay outs or they sell cheap porno magazines. The script hints at homosexuality. Most interestingly, the film doesn’t judge. It’s not long before we don’t just understand these men’s motive, we sympathise and find ourselves rooting on the sidelines. Go, robbers, go!
It doesn’t hurt the film that we have seen these men in a hundred gung ho British war epics. It only makes sense that former heroes could find little use for their skills when conflict ended. The characters these famous Thespians now play are men who went to fight in a war for a country that had no need or particular liking for them. I’m sure it touched a raw nerve with British audiences still living with the dregs of post war austerity. There is a joyous feeling of anarchy that bubbles up through the picture. These men know what they want, they know how to do it and they succeed in doing it.
It doesn’t hurt that these men bond into a little community of their own. They find their place together amongst others who understand them. They overcome suspicions and fall into a light hearted camaraderie and we fall in there with them.
The two major robbery sequences are superbly handled. There is a hard boiled edge to the action that British cinema lacked. It was fairly unusual to see a British urban movie where men waved big guns around and looked like they knew how to use them.
The director, Basil Dearden, employs nail biting tension rather than explosive action to achieve his goals but that’s not to say lessons had not been drawn from American cinema. However, in many ways, the lessons learnt were filtered to far better ends. Compare this film to the similarly themed “Ocean’s Eleven” (starring Frank Sinatra) and “League” wins hands down.
Every heist film made after this owes something to this movie including “Reservoir Dogs” and “Dead Presidents”. That doesn’t mean the film seems stale. On the contrary, it is surprisingly fresh given its vintage.
Of course, it all goes belly up in the final couple of minutes. What is surprising is how ridiculous the capture is. Even in these days of computer cross referencing, the police would have been unable to leap to the kinds of conclusions they are able to leap to here. Little boys and constables collecting licence plates on scraps of paper? Do me a favour. Whilst it seems like the film is saying that crime doesn’t pay and that your tiniest mistakes will find you out in the end, there is a little voice saying “the cops would not have a frigging clue; give it a go, you mug!”
Whilst full credit must go the acting skills of Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick and Richard Attenborough, the show is stolen by a twenty second mincing cameo by Oliver Reed. Actors take their work where ever they can get it.
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