The Smoke

I saw this film repackaged as London Payback, with a cover to make it look like a London gangster film. It really isn't. Instead what we get is an ultra-cheap romance/crime thriller in which a young man is having a very bad day and must use his wits and experience to see him through. This film feels very much like one of those cheaply-made Danny Dyer films set in London, except it's even worse than that. Somebody must have been convinced that Matt Di Angelo had the presence to hold a film together, but he really doesn't - and this is from somebody who liked him in EASTENDERS.

The gangster stuff that plays out is clichéd and unfunny, and features over the top performances from actors who typically play bit part or background actors in other gangster films (Stephen Marcus and Velibor Topic in particular) but are given leading roles here. Oh, and Alan Ford is on board too, playing yet another version of his villain character from SNATCH. Ricky Groves (Garry in EASTENDERS) has a cameo. From the first minute to the last, everything is predictable, and the quality of the camera-work is so poor that this looks like a homemade movie. Surely this has to be the lowest common denominator of the British gangster genre?