I’ve been on a bit of a crime spree recently film wise.

First up was The Long Good Friday. Killer plot, Bob Hoskins at his meanest, Charlie from Casualty getting glassed to death. Classic. The whole macho tough guy 70s British crime thing done with intelligence and class.

If you’ve got nearly four hours to spare watch Serigo Leone’s Once upon a time in America. Its his last film and its an absolute cinema classic. Robert De Niro and James Woods putting in the performances of their careers. The plot is tight, and because Leone takes a show not tell approach there are hints of what is going on that are only betrayed by the characters actions and their expressions. It takes in 50 years of organised crime and without wanting to give to much away starts in the 1920s and the street gangs in the jewish ghettos of New York and ends in the 1960s in the halls of power, where the corrupt trades unionists and gangsters who backed them are now in politics. A visual treat of a film that you should watch if you appreciate cinema as a medium in its own right never mind if you are a fan of Gangster movies.