When such films as Sexy Beast, Layer Cake, The Hatton Garden Job and the works of Guy Ritchie are taken into account, it can be seen that British gangster movies have become a genre of their own with a quite peculiar character some sort of an offshoot of the Ealing comedy with added thuggery, swearing and arcane London patois.
Fall of the Roman Empire is a bit of a shambolic version of all this. Clearly made on a shoestring (with help from Middlesex University for some reason), it was also written by Michael Head, who stars in and directs the film.
In one of Bermondsey Tales’ brief prologues, gangster patriarch George Scuderi (Frank Harper) tells us: “The one thing all Londoners and criminals have got in common is we all love a good story.” This points to the movie’s rambling, discursive structure. Whether borrowed from Chaucer or Boccaccio’s Decameron or the Brothers Grimm is anyone’s guess.
It can be entertaining enough. We go off into “The Cabbie’s Tale”, for example a little vignette about a dodgy black cab driver (Dean Kilbey), which comes around again at the end of the film as a punchline. And there’s a droll cameo by John Hannah as The Postman, who is hysterically paranoid because he has so many enemies.
Or it can be annoyingly random like when our south London crew go over to Amsterdam to meet some coke suppliers and get so wasted on pills and booze that nobody can remember what actually happened. Or when George’s ineffable coolness and villainous charm are demonstrated by his holding up a jeweller’s shop with a shotgun while shmoozing Scarlett, the eyelash-fluttering counter assistant (Jade Bovingdon). Which is just stupid.
Winding its way through the diversions and digressions is a twisty plot about the power struggle within the Roman crime family (it’s not made entirely clear why Henry, son of George Scuderi, is now called Henry Roman although it does make for a catchy title). Mick Roman (Gary Webster) has been left in charge of things following George’s violent death. Whether the succession is going to go to his petulant son Jimmy (Charlie Clapham, pictured above with Alexandra Kate) or Henry (Michael Head) is a matter of some concern to all parties.
Needless to say, villainy rarely runs smooth. And there’s an almost #MeToo-ish mood to the final act when the womenfolk of this crime clan finally get to vent some long pent-up feelings of resentment. Maisie Smith (pictured left with Linda Robson) really puts the boot into her portrayal of Jimmy’s cousin Chloe, while Alexandra Kate gives us more of a revenge is a dish best eaten cold vibe as Jimmy’s wife Sara.
But Bermondsey is let down by some basic structural issues. It never quite decides how much of a comedy it wants to be and its larky attitude towards torture and beatings doesn’t sit right. Meanwhile, that episodic structure looks suspiciously like it might have been used as a substitute for an actual plot. There are also some fight sequences which are pretty dire; they look like they were shot in rehearsals and then nobody bothered replacing them with the real thing. But at least Head had the decency to keep it down to 96 minutes.
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