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A VERY BRITISH GANGSTER
Directed by Donal MacIntyre
Produced by Sam Emmary, MacIntyre & Lill Cranfield
Released by Anywhere Road Entertainment
UK. 97 min. Not Rated

Producer/director Donal MacIntyre, very highly regarded in the British press for his television exposés (on football hooligans and corruption in home care), said he wanted to do a “Michael Moore for gangsters” with this film. The titular gangster is Dominic Noonan, apparently the most respected and feared crime figure in Manchester.  He’s also been a subject of rigorous police surveillance, and just in the course of this documentary, he is called into court twice and acquitted both times (eventually he was sent away, and is still serving time for “unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.”)

MacIntyre reveals the subject like an extended 60 Minutes segment, but digs deep into the network and crime ring that Noonan built up along with his (late) brother Desmond Noonan. A boaster and braggart, he hints, in his thick Irish/English accent, about crimes committed, but when directly pressed by MacIntyre with the “did you kill anyone” question, he’s evasive. 

MacIntyre also reveals that Noonan’s openly gay, despite having an 11-year-old son, but this is only touched upon briefly. Mostly MacIntyre is interested in two things: Noonan’s crime network, and his quasi-pillar status within the working-class community. As in Goodfellas, we learn the mob looks after denizens when they can’t go to the cops. Noonan even has his own security company.

If A Very British Gangster can be compared at all to Moore’s films, it’s in its tendency to be chock-full of things one usually doesn’t see all at once in a documentary: lots of elaborate camera movements and editing tricks, a usage of popular music on the soundtrack, and exposing the subject like a muckraker as opposed to a traditional journalist.  But the problem is that MacIntyre isn’t as entertaining a filmmaker as Moore, The film combines both grainy, intimate footage that sometimes is much too dark—in nightclubs or the local pubs—with elaborate camera setups and highflying crane shots that speak of grandiose ambitions that the director isn’t able to pull off due more to his strengths as an investigative journalist than someone with an imaginative eye and flair with the camera.

A Very British Gangster is fascinating in big chunks, and its final “act” of sorts, covering the murder and funeral of brother Desmond, is absorbing in a gritty and gangster movie sort of way. (The event commanded such attention that Manchester closed its schools.) But it’s also confused about whether it wants to be a straight piece of hard-boiled journalism or a wannabe Scorsese flick. Jack Gattanella
July 18, 2008