Gangster No. 1 (2001)
The story of a psychotic underworld usurper in swinging 60s London. A film of sharp suits, handmade shoes, infinite C-bombs and Andrew Lincoln with long hair.
Paul Bettany’s nameless Gangster spots a window of opportunity in the tit-for-tat war between David Thewlis and Jamie Foreman and exploits it fully. His motivations aren’t overly clear but they probably fall somewhere in the envy-greed-psychotic pot. The bloke is lunacy personified.
Far from a perfect movie and we’ve seen a lot of this before and since but there are some lovely scenes and moments, the Eddie Marsan look-at-my-fucking-eyes-snot scene is just harrowing with Bettany and Marsan at the very top of their games.
Decent enough Gangster fodder. Pretty much the launch pad for Paul Bettany.
“Look into my eyes. Look into my fucking eyes”.
“Calling me a cunt? You calling me a cunt? You cunt. I’ll fucking kick you. I’ll kick fuck out of ya. I’ll kick you to- fuck you. F… Fuck you!”
“That? That’s my favourite axe, Eddie.”
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