The Most Brutal Gangster Movie Isn t the One You Think collider.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from collider.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
If Alex DeLarge of "A Clockwork Orange" had become a London gangster, he might have turned out like the hero of "Gangster No. 1." The movie encourages that connection by casting Malcolm McDowell, the original Alex, as the character grown old. Paul Bettany, who plays Young Gangster, is often photographed with his eyes glaring up from beneath lowered brows, which was the signature look Stanley Kubrick gave Alex. Another connection: The movie contains a beating of startling brutality, scored by a pop song played at top volume. The movie is inspired, as all modern London gangster movies are inspired, by the notorious Kray brothers. It isn't based on their lives or deeds, but on the aura of evil they so successfully projected; they often got their way without violence, because they seemed so capable of it. In "Gangster No. 1," the crime family is led by Freddie Mays (David Thewlis), who in 1968 is a young, sleek, expensively groomed hood who runs a nightclu