IMDb > Gangster No. 1 (2000)
Gangster No. 1
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Gangster No. 1 (2000) More at IMDbPro »

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Gangster No. 1 (2000) -- Moviesbox.us - Trailer (Flash)

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Overview

User Rating:
6.7/10   5,731 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 8% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writer:
Johnny Ferguson (screenplay)
Contact:
View company contact information for Gangster No. 1 on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
9 June 2000 (UK) more
Genre:
Tagline:
There can only be ONE. more
Plot:
Chronicles the rise and fall of a prominent, and particularly ruthless English gangster. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
1 win & 9 nominations more
User Comments:
McDowell redivivus more (118 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Malcolm McDowell ... Gangster 55

David Thewlis ... Freddie Mays

Paul Bettany ... Young Gangster

Saffron Burrows ... Karen
Kenneth Cranham ... Tommy (as Ken Cranham)
Jamie Foreman ... Lennie Taylor

Eddie Marsan ... Eddie Miller
Andrew Lincoln ... Maxie King

Doug Allen ... Mad John

Razaaq Adoti ... Roland
Cavan Clerkin ... Billy
David Kennedy ... Fat Charlie

Johnny Harris ... Derek

Anton Saunders ... Trevor (as Anton Valensi)
Alex McSweeney ... Bloke In Tailor's
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Gangster No. 1 (Australia)
Gangster Nr. 1 (Germany)
more
MPAA:
Rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, and brief drug use and nudity.
Runtime:
103 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Company:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The two actors who play the "gangster" at the two points in his life are 7 inches different in height. more
Goofs:
Anachronisms: Freddie Mays is shown living in a groovy flat in the Lauderdale Tower of The Barbican in London in the late 60s; however the building was not completed until 1974. more
Quotes:
[first lines]
[song "The Good Life" begins as scene opens at boxing match; crowd noises]
Gangster 55: [laughing] What? With Scotland Yard breathing down me neck? Fuck off. Do me a favor!
[laughter]
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Lucky Number Slevin (2006) more
Soundtrack:
Utopia more

FAQ

what was the purpose of the urine champagne?
more
16 out of 25 people found the following comment useful.
McDowell redivivus, 13 July 2002
Author: nunculus (cosmovitelli@mediaone.net) from los angeles

What a mug! The evil-harlequin mask of Malcolm McDowell, so familiar from those bugeyed closeups of him "mounching lumpchiks of toast" in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, has aged into a fabulous ruin. And one of the pleasures of the glib, slick, cocky, brutal, shallow, and terrifically entertaining GANGSTER NO. 1 is in the realization that McDowell is the same McDowell--his voiceover has the same energetic sneer it had 31 years ago in CLOCKWORK. He's the same guy under a withered and weathered facade. As Gangster No. 1--a sociopath with a schoolgirl crush on his boss, spit-shined David Thewlis--McDowell brings you into the succulent pleasures of aged corruption and long-swallowed brutality. No. 1's nuttiness--a kind of belch of guilt, generally released in Francis Bacon-derivative silent screams--seems, for a while, like fun. Paul Bettany, playing Young No. 1, has a great, lizardlike, histrionic deadpan--he keeps telling his victims "Look into my eyes!" as if something scary and deep were hidden there. (Instead, there is zero--an effect Young No. 1 may be unaware of.) The movie takes such a jaunty and directorially piquant view of its own shin-kicking nihilism that you can't help but play along; until the moralizing but utterly earned finale sets you on your ear.

Not deep stuff--not even as deep as the superbly unself-reflective head-smackers who made up GOODFELLAS' crew. But Saffron Burrows, as a Cockney chanteuse who's mad in love with Thewlis' Mr. Big, brings you back to the days of much-posher-and-prettier-than-their-parts British character actresses. (Could Burrows in fact be the Susannah York of the millennium?) And the director, Paul McGuigan, and Bettany keep the joint jumpin'. Why did this get such a crummy release? There's been almost nothing this year as sheerly, undilutedly fun.

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