A Gangster’s Life: low-budget caper with flashes of visual flair

A Gangster’s Life is an odd film about two dodgy lads who, having fallen foul of a bona fide gangster, hide out in Greece. The film is not thoughtless but lacks the resources to bring its vision successfully to screen. Its quirks are sometimes appealing and sometimes amateurish, and influences from Bond to Kingsman to Guy Ritchie and Mission: Impossible swirl about; limited budgetary means make parts of the film feel at times like a TikTok parody of more expensive productions.

There are nevertheless some interesting visual ideas, such as a wide shot of a goon beating a man tied to a chair on a manicured lawn while someone calmly clips a hedge in the distance. Post-production is the biggest letdown: the sound mix is poor and the final image before the credits, which should be genuinely nasty, is derailed by risible FX.

Lead Tony Cook bills himself on social media as a cheap version of Jason Statham and largely fits that description; Jonny Weldon, noted for the Netflix adaptation of One Day, is amiable but does not have the material to work with here. Acting in smaller roles is uneven, contributing to tonal problems where it is often hard to tell whether moments are meant to be serious or comic, and the end-credits bloopers underline how often the cast laughed during ostensibly dramatic scenes.

Key Topics

Culture, A Gangster’s Life, Greece, Tony Cook, Jonny Weldon, Jason Statham