The catalogue of nasty British films about nasty British gangsters gains a powerful, very unsettling entry with Charlie, an offbeat biopic about ´60s London hoodlum Charlie Richardson and his notorious "terror gang." Pic is led by a magnetic performance from former boyband Bros star Luke Goss, and has an outlook that teeters perilously between damning and excusing Richardson´s past. This gritty, violent second feature by writer-director Malcolm Needs is set during the same period as the 1990 movie, The Krays, when working-class gangs evolved during the economic stringency of post-WWII Britain. Pic follows Charlie (Goss) and his brother Eddy (Langley Kirkwood) as they carve out a south London empire based on extortion and dodgy business deals.
Derek Elley