sneersnipe film review

The End Nicola Collins UK 2008

Crime pays. Or at least for some people the price holds no fear. At first The End seems little more than a reverent take on the late 1990s laddism obsession with the cockney gangster. For a few minutes an uncomfortable sensation occurs where you feel like you’ve inadvertently stumbled through some self-congratulatory portal to a Loaded shoot circa 1997, Cool crumbly Britannia and all.

A procession of self declared East London hard-men bare themselves to the screen with the usual bravado. Tales of doing this to that person, knocking off that bank. You know, the usual sort of gangster tales from yet another cheap talking heads documentary. You half expect Dave Courtney to appear hand in hand with Ronnie Biggs.

But then, director Nicola Collins does something unexpected with her film. These career criminals start to talk about how they grew up, how they feel about what they’ve done with their lives, what they think about the state of the East End today. We don’t necessarily get straight answers to these questions but it’s extraordinary – these men are actually reflective. They are also deeply frank to the point of clearly stating specifically certain topics that they can’t discuss.

Although shot in black and white, the revelation of such a frank confession by these types is spectacular.

The reason becomes apparent fairly early on – Collins is the daughter of one of the men being interviewed. Through him she has gained intimate audiences with these men. What patently comes out in the film is the similar upbringing all these people had in the East End, especially their love of boxing. Almost everybody interviewed started out boxing as a kid and discovered that they were good at it.

This leads to the demise of the post-war East End. The youngest of the men interviewed are in their mid-40s and after describing lives of continual fighting, the oldest must be way into his 60s, probably much further, and he’s still yabbering on about how if he couldn’t be top dog he’d kill himself. The worst thing is that you can believe him. Even in dotage these are extremely powerful men. But faced with physical decline and old age some of these guys are in denial. As these testaments seem to suggest despite a lifetime of beating down the opposition, and potentially winning, these are still pensioners. Yet as one memorably puts it – if he found out he had cancer he’d kill about five people because he just wouldn’t care any more.

Because The End is such an inner view on a lifestyle rarely shown, it becomes a horrifically contentious piece. Collins touches upon the issue of why are these men criminals ripping off other, possibly hard working individuals, and all she gets is that society held these guys down, that they adhere to a code, and so on. Owing to her personal proximity to her subjects and the sensitivity it’s unsurprising that she gets nowhere down this route. It’s a major fault in an otherwise major documentary but an inherent one.

sneersnipe