I am breaking a little bit with tradition here. I know I maintained that I would only review recent films, but I haven't made it to the theater yet to see some of the newer fair, and some of the other stuff that is available is trash. Enter stage right, "Face", a 1997 British film starring Robert Carlyle and one of my personal favorites, Ray Winestone. If you have ever heard of this film before reading these pages, give yourself a pat on the back. Even IMDB had to think about it a bit before finding it. I had never heard of it until a few weeks back, when I googled (is the verb form un-capitalized? I am assuming it is) "best British gangster films". This movie was on the very first list, along with some good company, like Michael Caine's "Get Carter" and "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". But "Face" was new to me. Well, sometimes these lesser-knowns can be real gems, and I like both the aforementioned actors, so I gave it a shot.
I wasn't disappointed, pleasantly surprised, in fact. Carlyle plays Ray (I know, with Ray Winestone in the film, its a bit confusing) a disillusioned socialist who has turned to bank-robbing as a means getting by, with his partners Dave (Winestone), the (I think) slightly retarded Steve, and the sociopathic Julian, who always had a shotgun under his trench-coat (the actors who played these two I am not familiar with). The movie begins with the crew pulling off a big job, only for things to start spiralling out of control in the aftermath, when their loot is stolen from them. It started out a bit rough, as the accents these guys have (in particular Winestone's character) is actually quite hard to comprehend at times, but I eventually got the hang of it. After a slow opening 15 or 20 minutes, the story begins to pick up, and your interest is kept quite well until the end credits roll. All the actors did a superb job, especially Carlyle and Winestone, who really seemed at home in these movie. Two very good performances. The Julian character was a real hoot too, providing some very dark humor to the film and some laugh out loud lines. Don't read that wrong, "Face" is intended to be a serious film, but what good British gangster flick doesn't have its share of dark humor? There was good doses in "Face", and I love it ( I am not sure if I should be worried about this.....) Its is a fairly simplistic story line, so nothing anybody could screw up, but it is still done well enough to make the movie worth watching. There are some decent bits of action as well. There is also a pretty exciting ending, first with elements of the crew sneaking through a police station, eventually getting caught up in a fire fight.
It is a fairly short (hour and forty minutes) and simple film, but "Face" is good, I was really glad that I bounded across this one. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that was made before the year 2000, and it was a little strange watching them use cell phones that looked like walkie-talkies. No matter though, there was some very good acting in this picture, and it was plain fun to watch as well, so it is a shame that "Face" didn't get that much face-time (you see what I did there? Pretty good huh?). Like I said, I didn't know of its existence until I did my Google search. I sure am glad that somebody thought to give it mention though.
Verdict: See it. Grade: A-
If you liked this movie you might also like: Roberty Carlyle and Ray Winestone are both very good at what they do, and don't get that much recognition (at least in my mind), go IMDB them and see some of there other stuff.
I wasn't disappointed, pleasantly surprised, in fact. Carlyle plays Ray (I know, with Ray Winestone in the film, its a bit confusing) a disillusioned socialist who has turned to bank-robbing as a means getting by, with his partners Dave (Winestone), the (I think) slightly retarded Steve, and the sociopathic Julian, who always had a shotgun under his trench-coat (the actors who played these two I am not familiar with). The movie begins with the crew pulling off a big job, only for things to start spiralling out of control in the aftermath, when their loot is stolen from them. It started out a bit rough, as the accents these guys have (in particular Winestone's character) is actually quite hard to comprehend at times, but I eventually got the hang of it. After a slow opening 15 or 20 minutes, the story begins to pick up, and your interest is kept quite well until the end credits roll. All the actors did a superb job, especially Carlyle and Winestone, who really seemed at home in these movie. Two very good performances. The Julian character was a real hoot too, providing some very dark humor to the film and some laugh out loud lines. Don't read that wrong, "Face" is intended to be a serious film, but what good British gangster flick doesn't have its share of dark humor? There was good doses in "Face", and I love it ( I am not sure if I should be worried about this.....) Its is a fairly simplistic story line, so nothing anybody could screw up, but it is still done well enough to make the movie worth watching. There are some decent bits of action as well. There is also a pretty exciting ending, first with elements of the crew sneaking through a police station, eventually getting caught up in a fire fight.
It is a fairly short (hour and forty minutes) and simple film, but "Face" is good, I was really glad that I bounded across this one. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that was made before the year 2000, and it was a little strange watching them use cell phones that looked like walkie-talkies. No matter though, there was some very good acting in this picture, and it was plain fun to watch as well, so it is a shame that "Face" didn't get that much face-time (you see what I did there? Pretty good huh?). Like I said, I didn't know of its existence until I did my Google search. I sure am glad that somebody thought to give it mention though.
Verdict: See it. Grade: A-
If you liked this movie you might also like: Roberty Carlyle and Ray Winestone are both very good at what they do, and don't get that much recognition (at least in my mind), go IMDB them and see some of there other stuff.
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