Joe Day Just caught this on Netflix and I must say it shows that, like those other scum bags, the Krays (or Capone even), so-called gangsters are and just scared cowards and momma's boys and the fact that they are openly gay makes it even more bizarre.I am sick of the excuse that they have to do this to survive. That we have a reputation to withhold. And I note that in Britain (Scotland, Ireland), the relationship between parents and adults is appalling. No one seems to have any respect for their parents and do whatever they damned-well please (smoking at 8 years old etc.) and the attitude is oh, well, what can you do? The idea that children can actually be negatively influenced in sitting around with adults while they brag of crime, curse to high Heaven, etc. is disgusting as well.There just seems, on these "Estates" to be an overwhelming stench of debauchery, incest and more. Like the gay Kray brothers, who were reported to be sadists in their romantic pursuits, I figure there is more to Dominick as well in that area. He obviously likes them young. His rationalization foe being gay is curious as well. He basically says he is gay because from an early age he was repeatedly gang raped. Huh?And the whole Catholic thing is nauseating as well. What is it about that religion that its followers feel perfectly "free" to do all kinds of sinful acts and then think they can go and "confess" and it is all over --- until, As Noonan himself says, tomorrow when I do it again? You get a totally cartoon funeral for older bro Desi, knifed to death by some crack dealer he was trying to intimidate but who apparently had not gotten the memo on who he was messing with. And of course, The Noonans will not accept that this guy probably had every right to off their brother and even have it announced at the funeral that vengeance will be theirs, not God's. The did, however, say it "respectfully" since they were in church and all. And then the priest asks God to forgive all Desi's bad deeds and let him into Heaven. Oooooookay....And, the cortege is led by pipers and cops and firefighters. On the take? Schools and businesses close etc. - just like for Al Capone.The family supposedly took in millions but you won't really see that here. They all look like classic trash that had been on the dole for generation. Everybody looks like they need a bath and after all those sausages, eggs and beans, what the place must smell like ....Did they know ANY girls at all? All I saw was one of Dom's obvious tricks running around in a t-shirt that says "slow suck." I suppose, in different outfits, these boys would be the notorious Scallies who turn tricks in between mugging foreigners or making bad amateur porn and in general creating havoc for the hell of it.As is the case in real-life Britain today, fathers are virtually non-existent, and when they are, almost always in a cuckolded way; sad drunks for whom neither wife nor children have any respect. And the dads know it and accept that too.This film, and its depiction of Britain, make the U.S. look better and better and I cherish what we have here and can understand why we left. I pray we do not become like that; generations of bums content to do anything, say anything, and justify it in the name of survival and then expect God to understand as well.Interesting if only to illustrate how not to live and who not to idolize. Capone used to hand out turkeys too and even Hitler had a mother, but so what?

DonKowalski I really don't know what was driving the director to turn a exceptionally interesting set of problems into an almost unwatchable and featherbrained piece of crap.The gangsters shown to us are actually small time criminals, that come from the most knocked off part of society and never made it out of it. Don't expect anything streetwise either, these people are way beyond that. What you are going to hear are stunningly stupid statements that rather reflect pipe dreams than reality. Surprisingly that is exactly the point, that could have made this an exceptionally good and important documentary. A honest picture of how bad it can get in these so very "social" western societies. Where people are left and forgotten to literally rot in their own trash if they don't fit in.Instead of showing us the decline of a city, the dark side of unlimited growth and wealth, Donald McIntyre tries to create a Hollywood-like gangster story which simply isn't there. The (over-) dramatization is comparable to such reality-shows as "cops" at best. The scenes and interviews are so awfully overdrawn - it is embarrassing. McIntyre doesn't make a single attempt to put things into perspective. At first you might think he cleverly uses Noonans narcissism to lure him out of cover. But when the first 30 minutes have past and Noonan is still talking trash while McIntyre keeps asking stupid questions you realize that it just won't gain any quality. Instead the pictures are underlined by folk and rock music combined with good but utterly unnecessary camera angles that (i'm afraid) intentionally glorify the whole habitus of these people. Especially the complex pan shots make the scenes look staged and false.As a previous critic has put very well, you can not always tell the difference between a documentary and the poor copy of a guy-ritchie-film. The entire approach is so amazingly undifferentiated and cheesy, at times i really thought the creator is just making fun of me. McIntyre acts as if he were embedded in a major military operation somewhere in Afghanistan, giving insights that are usually hidden from the public. Yet he is just in the presence of probably the biggest losers England has to offer.I rate this with two stars, just for some of the pictures shown. Definitely some disturbing and thought provoking stuff. If you make it that far into the movie.Cheers

homer_76179 Overly long and without much unifying message, A Very British Gangster will surely leave many scratching their heads. Americans usually have a entirely different view of what a "British Gangster" would be. These guys seem to be minor characters in a Guy Ritchie movie. Rather than wearing three piece suits and driving expensive cars, the Noonan family make their living exploiting the down trodden members of Manchester in their cheap clothes and fake gold jewelry.We really don't get to see the true underbelly of what life is like as a gangster in Manchester. The gang spends its time posing on street corners, making idle threats and generally looking like a bunch of kids trying to emulate the real deal. But we do get a sense that there is much more below the surface. We never meet the real gangsters we expect to find but they seem to lurk in the corners the film doesn't explore. The Noonans seem to be putting on a show for the cameras, allowing only their teenage goons to be on camera and their operations limited to settling disputes between the locals. Dominic claims to have stolen millions of dollars, but the whole gang is still stuck in near poverty, living in small flats and proud of their meager possessions.This movie is less a study on a British crime boss and more a look at the gritty reality of the poor urban centers of Britain. Places where small time crooks can still make money on petty crimes and instilling fear in the local community. The Noonans are playing a game that is getting increasingly harder to win at. Many of the kids have dreams to do something different with their lives. One wants to be an actor, another a singer, another just to escape Manchester. Unfortunately, the sad truth is most of the gang, including Noonan's son and God Son, are spiraling down the gutter without any hope or guidance that could help them become anything more than small times thieves; destined to spend most of their adult lives behind bars.

Nightmare-Maker After just watching this very insightful documentary into one of Britains most infamous criminals, Dominick Noonan, I got to say I really did like it.Dominick Noonan, born, bred and in his own words...will die in Manchester, has been running the city for years, spending more of his life behind bars than on the outside. He has a MASSIVE reputation, and rightfully so, we hear how and what he done to get his rep (to show whos the boss to a rival gang, he cuts a dog's head off and putting it on a pool table in a pub, now known as THE DOGS HEAD, then promptly says next time it will be a human's head)...but he actually comes across as quite a decent guy too...just don't get on the wrong side of him!He does a lot for the community, offers services to rival the police(people actually get hold of him rather than the police to sort domestic problems i.e noisy neighbours, people who owe money etc, etc... because he is more likely to get the problem sorted with better results), as well as running his own security firm.All credit to the the film-maker Donal Mcintyre, he follows Dominick around over a period of time, and we get to know a lot of his posse, mainly made up of teenage lads, but some of the questions he gets out of Dominick are unbelievable, anybody else would surely of had a cricket bat wrapped round their head! The documentary also involves Dominics' brother, who was a self-confessed ganglord, who was tragically murdered, and we see the unbelievable scenes where the majority of the city came to a complete standstill on the day of his funeral.This is a REAL documentary..not a film, so don't expect FOOTBALL FACTORY or RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER, this is real, uncompromising footage of one of Britains most infamous gangsters.