The End - Confessions Of A Cockney Gangster [DVD] [2008]

This is so bad it's good. I saw that it had received some awards and thought it might be an undiscovered urban gem but on closer inspection the awards were probably given by the makers.
I knew it was going to be bad from the start. The directors Dad is describing growing up in London during the war talking over old film of (I think)Stalingrad, Dresden and trench warfare. The rest is a few cliches by an assortment of characters followed by a moody shot. For example on prisons " You don't know what it's like to have 30 screws charge into your cell" followed by a shot of barbed wire. zoom in.
There are a couple of blokes who are interesting like Jimmy Tibbs ( a boxing trainer) who seemed to have an interesting story but the rest are embarrassing. When they start telling funny stories it get's worse they laugh uproariously at their own poor jokes.
The star of the show is a guy called Vic Darke, he seems to have a flapjack on his head, check him out on Youtube with Danny Dyer. His crime of the century was robbing a nlghtclub with his mate. It seems they were a couple of clowns and it would have been laughable if they hadn't shot and seriously injured the owner. Somehow Darkes mate got shot even though him and Darke were the only ones with guns. They were chased by the Police and Darke escaped and hid in a field but after a day or so he gave himself up because it was freezing.
His whinging and moaning about how harsh prison is and how the Police never leave him alone is fantastic especially when he admits he is a criminal and pretends that he is some kind of contract killer.
If there is sequel I'll probably buy it.

There's something very rotten at the heart of this documentary. It's that crime does indeed pay. One of the criminals says so quite bluntly during the film, but there's also the more subtle side. That the sisters who made it are using their father and his criminal connections for their own gain in making this documentary. That kind of thing should not be rewarded, so I recommend you don't buy this DVD and don't add to the rewards of crime for criminals and their families.

That said, the documentary is not utter rubbish. The black and white filming is competent and assured. The film-makers clearly know what they are doing. The black and white film both adds to the style and allure (if you are inclined to find the subjects of the film alluring) but is also clearly intended to show that these men are from an era that has passed. That 'their' East End no longer exists and thus they are just fading away not to be replaced.

There's a lot of affection for the men from the film-makers. The men, all of whom are criminals, some killers, some armed robbers, and so on are in effect presented as 'loveable rogues' who wouldn't hurt women or children and would only fight with 'men' who were up for it. These are men who supposedly lived by the old East End code. It's a load of nonsense though, and quite disturbing if you think it through from the little slips of reality that come through from the men involved. Rascals don't attack people with choppers and knives. Rascals don't treat Policemen as being something less than human.

The perverted morality of the men goes a lot further. Most of them claim to despise bullies, yet fail to understand that their idea of respect and fear makes them bullies in their own right. These are men that justify what they do, no matter how destructive, and see themselves as being in the right all the way to the hilt. Nothing alluring or desirable about that once you reveal it for what it is. Sure some of them have 'found God' and become Christians, but that doesn't put the world to rights. These are not good men whatever they may say about themselves or each other.

There's an air of sadness that their East End has come to an End. That all the people who used to live there and be a community have moved on or died. We are shown Brick Lane in the East End now, where the only obvious white face was the large round one of Mickey Goldtooth taking the film-makers around and bemoaning that everything has changed. The stall holders, the people living there, the atmosphere. It doesn't take a lot to work out that what isn't said out loud on film is most definitely felt and said in private.

So ultimately there is some basic quality to the documentary, but it's not worth paying to see it, and it's not worth paying the families of criminals for it either. Nearly all of what is said by the men involved is material that has already appeared in print or otherwise. There's a total lack of contextualisation as well. We are given their views, but not the views of the people they committed crimes against. We aren't given the other side at all. To be blunt I ended up thinking that it's probably a very good thing that the East End they knew and loved (because it served them so well) is gone.

Only a few days ago, I was cycling into work in the morning sunshine and had stopped at the traffic lights immediately beside Holborn Tube station in Central London. And I heard something really unusual. It was a Cockney accent. By the railings just as you come out of the entrance was a brand new fruit trader shouting his Beau Bells head off like they do - prices of plums, bananas, apples and pears, weather reports, comments on the ladies and their pencil skirts, lurid remarks about their wobbling bums and heaving cleavage. And I thought now that's refreshing...

I mentioned it to the boys when I got into work a few minutes later because - (a) apart from the fruit market at the bottom of our Berwick Street, you just don't hear that 'exclusive' London accent anymore... and (b) there is no one more politically incorrect and therefore as funny as a Cockney.

"The End - Confessions Of A Cockney Gangster" is about the East End of London and the criminals that arose out of it. If you are born within earshot of the bells of the London Church of St. Mary-Le-Bow in Cheapside - you're a proper Cockney from the East End of London (nicknamed "The End"). The style of the film is a daughter interviewing her criminal Dad and associates - trying to understand why they did what they did - and still do. It's done in a documentary style and consists of interviews with 11 people - some are reformed Christians, some unrepentant who still spend their lives avoiding the law and its consequences.

Written, filmed and directed by NICOLA COLLINS, the danger in this film is that the cheeky-wide-boy antics of these thugs becomes mere entertainment and the very real destruction they reaped on people's lives and their communities gets lost in a wave of sappy nostalgia that isn't deserved. But Nicola bravely doesn't shirk it in what she leaves 'in' about her Dad and his buddies...what she could have edited out and didn't. So there are times when the reminiscences are sickeningly violent, grotesque and tortuous to a point where you think these uneducated yobs are little more than animals, but there are also times when the remembered characters and events are ball-breakingly funny - violent and funny - and at times of course - a strange mixture of both.

All of them talk of 'bird' - doing prison-time. Some can hack it, many can't. Some are even smart enough to realize the staggering waste of it all - all those years banged up because they couldn't shut up and control themselves. As to why they turn to crime, there's the convenient and shallow excuse about poverty and having to find a way out of it - few seem unwilling to admit that they took the easy road while ordinary people simply grafted for their families and loved ones. Some talk about keeping the violence away from their loved ones - but again it reeks of hypocrisy. Dad gets banged up while the wife, son and daughter get left behind and screwed by it... Two are now born-again Christians - sickened to their very souls by the corruptive nature of what they were doing. They actually seem saved to me...and not in the least bit sappy.

But as the Capitol city of Great Britain literally becomes the melting pot of the world, you can't help but feel that 'suited 'n' booted' Cockneys are a life force that's disappearing in a sea of other Nationalities... In a few years, will they even exist at all? Who knows?

So what's it all about Alfie? Although there's a sort of guilty voyeuristic pleasure to be had in this strange film, I was finally left with an all-abiding feeling of sadness, a way of life that led too many of these men into wasted years behind bars at her Majesties Service - which is exactly where you can't help but feel the snot-noses who run Great Britain want all of them. Keep them uneducated; you keep them in their corner...

Cockneys are both full of shit and full of fun. Underworld Cockneys are even more so. Everyone knows that. And I don't know why we have such affection for them - I really don't. But a part of me hopes that in some way, that Fruit Trader makes it...