Dir. Donal MacIntyre, 2007, UK, 97 mins, documentary
Cast: Dominic Noonan, Donal MacIntyre
Review by Kevin Gill
Television, rather than cinema, has always provided the ideal platform for Donal MacIntyre’s documentary exposes, largely because content indisputably privileges form in filmmaking that depends on hidden microphones, secret cameras, concealed identities and steely nerves for its hard-hitting effect. Significantly, there’s no clandestine infiltration or undercover work involved in this portrait of Manchester mob boss Dominic Noonan, and that difference in approach provides the scope for a film whose structure and aesthetic might be vastly more cinematic to that for which MacIntyre is famed. Disappointingly though, MacIntyre’s step from journalist to director is not an entirely successful one, and A Very British Gangster, while not a film without qualities, never feels like it belongs anywhere but the small screen (in fact, different edits of the film have appeared on Channel Five over the last few years, initially in 2005 as part of the series MacIntyre’s Underworld).
Gangster was received enthusiastically at Cannes and Sundance, but one suspects that above all it was the sight of MacIntyre’s subject on the screen that persuaded the UK distributor that the film was worth a punt in the cinema. Noonan, shaven-headed, bespectacled, and with a thick, rippling neck, is an imposing and terrifying presence, filling the frame with his physique and personality as he talks about a life of crime involving kidnapping, intimidation, drugs, robbery and murder. Although at times there are shades of Louis Theroux about MacIntyre’s questioning – particularly in the suggestion that “there is a hint of lavender” about Noonan that leads to the revelation of his homosexuality – the interviewer is an unobtrusive and respectful presence in Noonan’s world, allowing a compelling and complex portrait to emerge.
While we are never in any doubt that we are in the presence of a man who has committed truly despicable acts, Noonan is often an engaging, witty character (“He’s so good, he convinced me I wasn’t there”, he says of his lawyer after an alleged, botched drug deal). It is unlikely that the audience will truly warm to someone whose legal name Lattlay Fottfoy is an acronym of his maxim ‘Look after those that look after you, fuck off those that fuck off you’, but it’s impossible not to recognise Noonan’s humanity when, for example, he buries his murdered brother or talks of the rape and physical abuse he suffered in his formative years.
As for Noonan’s motives, he might not quite convince us that he plays an essential role in protecting and serving his local community, but equally it is clear that his choice of vocation is not driven by materialistic self-servitude – “Where’s the money?” asks Noonan when MacIntyre suggests the gangster’s career earnings are up to £6 million. It seems there is no life but a life of crime for the underclass to which Noonan belongs – an impression furthered by fly-on-the-wall scenes that suggest MacIntyre and his crew have hung around long enough to become part of the furniture in Noonan’s various milieus (the footage was shot over three years). As MacIntyre follows Noonan on house calls and hangs out with his juvenile protegees, his camera reveals doomed lives ravaged by poverty, illiteracy, drugs, alcohol and violence.
This contextualisation is vital to understanding Noonan, but other elements have the negative effect of diminishing the film’s impact and coherence. Narrative threads are introduced without conviction, for instance that of a young drug dealer who is arbitrarily presented by MacIntyre as Noonan’s successor. Some scenes exist apparently in isolation, most obviously one dialogue sequence between Noonan’s son and nephew that is staged on a riverbank and shot through a telephoto lens. Other embellishments, meanwhile, have all the subtlety of a warning from Don Corleone: an early montage sequence, cut to Pulp Fiction’s signature theme ‘Misirlou’, includes Noonan and his entourage walking down an industrial street in slow motion; an elaborate crane shot through a Catholic church precedes a confessional interview about faith, guilt and forgiveness; and an upbeat number by Oasis (who appear on the soundtrack three times), accompanied by images of working class Manchester life, booms out after one of Noonan’s acquittals.
A lot of the footage in Gangster is documentary dynamite, but it’s assembled crudely and the end result feels cheap and slapdash. It is as if narrative and genre are being forced upon the viewer throughout – such sensationalist techniques are par for the course in television documentary, but they’re nakedly exposed on the big screen. Bold, uncompromising and revealing, the film has MacIntyre’s signature all over it – but unfortunately for the cinema-goer, it also has Channel Five’s.
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