Top Dog

Within the first 5 mins I thought this was going to be rubbish , and I was right . However I stuck it out and it didn't get any better . Complete and utter tosh don't waste your time on this film .

I'm rather surprised that director Martin Kemp's London gangster drama Top Dog gets only an average 5.2 based on user ratings here. Although the figure is nominally above average, I've always thought that anything less than a 6 implies not only that the film is not very good, but that is rather bad. Top Dog by ex-Spandau Ballet bassist Kemp (and I'm sure he must hate that description - I mean no one refers to ex-RC seminarian Martin Scorsese or former jobbing artist Adolf Hitler) also got less than admirable reviews in the Guardian and the Huff Post and I do wonder why: it wouldn't have won an Oscar and does tread well-trodden ground but it does so with aplomb. In simpler words: as one of its kind Top Dog isn't at all bad and a lot better than some.

Were I writing for the Guardian I might write - although it didn't, it described the film, which it gave only one star out of a possible five, as 'witless' and 'low-level ladsploitation' (note the 'clever' wordplay there which will have amused guardianistas if no one else) - that Top Dog is an investigation into what happens when testosterone-fuelled male bravado gets way out of hand. In one sense 'witless' is apt as it does well to describe the leading figure (Leo Gregory), a man astute enough to run a car dealership well enough to afford him a nice lifestyle but who otherwise can see no further than his own ego and addiction to fighting with the fans of rival clubs.

The Guardian is very unfair: Gregory's Billy Evans, a man who gets way out of his depth when he locks horns with a local gangster and then eventually comes into the sights of a far more important - and far more dangerous - gangster, is neither glorified nor portrayed in any way as enviable. In that sense Kemp's film takes quite a moral stance although I doubt he would be too happy to have that sign hung around the film's neck.

Gregory gets great support from fellow actors, but a special mention should go to Vincent Regan who as the man Billy Evans should never have tangled with - though he certainly didn't do so on purpose - can get more menace into his Northern Irish brogue when ordering a glass of orange juice in a pub than many a man could get toting a handgun. The two female leads also do a good job at portraying long-suffering wives who love their husbands but do wish they would finally grow up.

So there you have it: ignore the average '5.2' the film gets here on IMDB and most certainly ignore the sniffy review in the Guardian. Top Dog does the job and does it well - as I say better than many such films. And the ending did take me by surprise. Give it a whirl if you come across it. (I caught it on Netflix.)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Billy Evans (Leo Gregory) used to be the head of the toughest football firm in the East End, but has now settled down to a quiet family life, with a successful car dealership business under his belt. But he is forced to gather his old crew back together when new face on the crime scene Mickey (Ricci Harnett) starts running protection on some old friends of his. This results in a calamitous battle of wills that sets in motion a devastating chain of events that sets him on a collision course with the sinister Watson (Vincent Regan), the shadowy figure controlling Mickey and his mob.

These East End gangster/hooligan films are all pretty interchangeable, yet they obviously have a pretty big following, given the volume and momentum with which the new ones appear on the scene. Leo Gregory would be one such genre favourite, who appears with some regularity in these offerings, and here he is in this latest addition directed by Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp, which seems to have appeared out of nowhere with less than a flurry of publicity. This may not be hard to comprehend, since while it's the latest addition to the genre, it offers nothing new and nothing to inject the field with any substance or quality.

Kemp only ever really attained mild success as an actor, and if this is his style as a director, he may get stopped even sooner in his tracks. Somehow, this projects a really cheap, amateurish look about it, like a film student effort, not even up to the standards of a TV movie. In amongst the barrage of mockney slang and clichés, there are some moments of suitably hair raising, shocking violence and the performances are stellar enough. Gregory has a passion and flair in his manner that suggests he's really trying, while as the highest calibre actor on offer, Regan steals the show as the softly spoken, methodical psychopath. But this is still too much of a low grade, dirt cheap effort to be anything more than just the very sum of it's parts. **

I am French and this kind of films are not even released in DVD in Paris, but I crave for them, good or not. This is a typical British crime drama flick, emphasizing on the UK culture or hooligans and hoodlums, with the right atmosphere. And the crime movie code is respected, crime movie in general, from UK or not from UK. I am amazed by this ordinary family man, with a pretty house, a kid and a wife, who is also a fierce football hooligan club leader. A man who rapidly happens to be involved with gangsters who take money by force from some folks he particularly love: a couple of pub owners. OK, you have nothing exceptional here, but every crime film can not be HEAT...I love this simple but so dark, bleak and downbeat tale. The lead character maybe not the best choice, but he is convincing although. The best choice may be Vincent Reagan as the lead gangster, the kingpin, so impressive. I am lucky to possess so many UK gangsters films in my huge pile of DVD to be seen soon.I hope to find here many gems like this one.

I've never quite understood why they insist in speaking with these unreal London accents!

Needless to say this could have been an average film at best, but instead we are left with what seems a poorly edited, averagely directed and some rather poor acting. The plot is weak at its best and the script is so way off from we are expecting in terms of British film standards.

That said, if you have some free time on a Wednesday afternoon, you could do a lot worse.

Not our finest British hour.