A Very British Gangster
A Very British Gangster gathers all the ingredients to manage a good thriller: a dangerous godfather in the mafia whose brother is a professional killer, a city poisoned by poverty and violence where the population is under the control of gangsters and where the state and its representatives are powerless. But A Very British Gangster is not a thriller. Everything is forlornly real in this movie. Nothing is made up: there are no actors, no set, and no script. A Very British Gangster is a documentary directed by the famous British investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.
Donal MacIntyre draws a detailed portrait of Dominic Noonan, nicknamed “Lattlay Fottloy”, a forty years old gangster who spent twenty-two years in jail. The journalist, who followed Dominic Noonan for three years, shows us the complex and paradoxical personality of a well-dressed gangster, homosexual and father of two boys, proud of his criminal activities and supporter of his nephew’s singer ambitions (the boy wants to win the
British reality competition “The X-Factor”!). Dominic Noonan is not only a famous hold-up man, he also plays a central social role in Manchester inhabitants’ life. He tackles social issues by giving money to an indebted friend, organizing fireworks for poor children, intervening to bring back a baby to its mother. When there have a problem, people turn to Dominic Noonan, not to the police or the legal system. Through this documentary, the journalist denounces the social and political factors that led to Dominic Noonan’s ascendancy over Manchester and particularly the state’s weakness and blank.
The documentary is not always technically perfect but its strength comes from the way the journalist deals with a difficult topic without lapsing into morality. Donal MacIntyre never judges Dominic Noonan’s behavior or personality but he does not hide any side of his personality either. The result is disturbing, neither black nor white, just real, as balanced and bitter as reality can be.
