User Reviews

An crazy look at Dominic Noonan, heir apparent of gang family in modern day Manchester, England. Noonan is a brutish looking individual who wields a lot of power on pure tradition, which makes this profile all the more interesting when it is said that Noonan is openly gay. Compared to US gangsters, Noonan and his crew of (mostly) teenagers might seem like the Spinal Tap of the underworld as they drive around and settle little squabbles. But I think helmer Donal MacIntyre is intentionally going soft on Noonan here as he tends to overlook Noonan's shady investments and downplay his crimes (including a torture attack that sounds particularly vicious). The crew is "lucky" enough to have Noonan's older brother (and reputed hit-man) get murdered while they were in production so they get to cover that as well. This also works as a nice way to compare the US vs. UK legal system as the documentary claims Noonan has been convicted of more than 20 armed robberies (including a hilarious jail bust in order to do robberies), yet still he is let out of prison.

Its very rare that I choose to stop watching a movie once I have invested a little time in it. However this is one of those occasions when I just couldn't face another half hour of the rubbish being served up to me as a serious documentary.

Domonic Noonan is a failed gangster from Manchester. He has spent a total of 27 years in prison and has nothing to show for it, his family still lives in the same slum of a council estate. He surrounds himself with young, stupid thugs who stand around uncomfortably in ill fitting suits clearly being worn for the first time. He gives it the large one playing the part of a big time hoodlum he clearly isn't and then expects us to believe the story of sexual abuse he suffered as a child, as if that was some kind of justification for his wasted life. He even goes onto say that said abuse was responsible for making him gay! That should have been when I hit the eject button, but wasn't.

I checked out when Noonan attempts to give himself more "legitamacy" by linking his dead brother, another failed gangster, and by extension himself with the IRA bombing in Manchester of June 1996 when 212 people were injured.

What sort of an idiot gives a platform to this kind of self deluded fantasist without any balancing comment? More frightening, what sort of idiot will watch it?

Just caught this on Netflix and I must say it shows that, like those other scum bags, the Krays (or Capone even), so-called gangsters are and just scared cowards and momma's boys and the fact that they are openly gay makes it even more bizarre.

I am sick of the excuse that they have to do this to survive. That we have a reputation to withhold. And I note that in Britain (Scotland, Ireland), the relationship between parents and adults is appalling. No one seems to have any respect for their parents and do whatever they damned-well please (smoking at 8 years old etc.) and the attitude is oh, well, what can you do? The idea that children can actually be negatively influenced in sitting around with adults while they brag of crime, curse to high Heaven, etc. is disgusting as well.

There just seems, on these "Estates" to be an overwhelming stench of debauchery, incest and more. Like the gay Kray brothers, who were reported to be sadists in their romantic pursuits, I figure there is more to Dominick as well in that area. He obviously likes them young. His rationalization foe being gay is curious as well. He basically says he is gay because from an early age he was repeatedly gang raped. Huh?

And the whole Catholic thing is nauseating as well. What is it about that religion that its followers feel perfectly "free" to do all kinds of sinful acts and then think they can go and "confess" and it is all over --- until, As Noonan himself says, tomorrow when I do it again?

You get a totally cartoon funeral for older bro Desi, knifed to death by some crack dealer he was trying to intimidate but who apparently had not gotten the memo on who he was messing with. And of course, The Noonans will not accept that this guy probably had every right to off their brother and even have it announced at the funeral that vengeance will be theirs, not God's. The did, however, say it "respectfully" since they were in church and all. And then the priest asks God to forgive all Desi's bad deeds and let him into Heaven. Oooooookay....

And, the cortege is led by pipers and cops and firefighters. On the take? Schools and businesses close etc. - just like for Al Capone.

The family supposedly took in millions but you won't really see that here. They all look like classic trash that had been on the dole for generation. Everybody looks like they need a bath and after all those sausages, eggs and beans, what the place must smell like ....

Did they know ANY girls at all? All I saw was one of Dom's obvious tricks running around in a t-shirt that says "slow suck." I suppose, in different outfits, these boys would be the notorious Scallies who turn tricks in between mugging foreigners or making bad amateur porn and in general creating havoc for the hell of it.

As is the case in real-life Britain today, fathers are virtually non-existent, and when they are, almost always in a cuckolded way; sad drunks for whom neither wife nor children have any respect. And the dads know it and accept that too.

This film, and its depiction of Britain, make the U.S. look better and better and I cherish what we have here and can understand why we left. I pray we do not become like that; generations of bums content to do anything, say anything, and justify it in the name of survival and then expect God to understand as well.

Interesting if only to illustrate how not to live and who not to idolize. Capone used to hand out turkeys too and even Hitler had a mother, but so what?