Whilst the Krays ruled the East End underworld during the 1960's the Richardson's dominated South London. Charlie tells the story of the rise and fall of the Richardson gang from the viewpoint of Charlie Richardson (Luke Goss).
The film begins in 1966 with the arrest of Charlie Richardson and then proceeds to show flashbacks of events throughout his life intertwined with the court case which followed. The film follows the same predictable pattern as the earlier Krays film.
From his beginnings in London the film goes onto show how he expanded his business interests to owning diamond mines in South Africa. The film deals with political issues and how he became involved with officials within South Africa.
The film is quite graphic in its portrayal of how Charlie treated his enemies and some of the torture scenes are quite graphic, however the film does not particularly glamorise the criminal underworld.
The film is let down by the lack of depth in the characters throughout the film, with the exception of Luke Goss (who puts in a good performance) none of the other actors are really given anything to play with. Considering the fact that the main protagonists are real people no attempt is made to try and draw out the plot and therefore the film misses a great opportunity to really put forward a great story. The director's lack of experience is really shown in this film; previously Malcolm Needs had written the gangster flop Shoreditch which starred Shane Ritchie and seems to cover similar plots again.
Charlie also suffers from the fact that the plot is rather rushed and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Events such as meeting the Krays and being asked to spy on anti apartheid organisations are brought up and dealt with within minutes. The ending in particular seems to have been rushed and leaves the viewer with a sense of confusion.
Whilst the Kray's portrayed the twins in a rather positive light it also highlighted some of their darker moments, however Charlie portrays Richardson as a political pawn in who is made an example of. The film blames everyone but Richardson for what happened as the establishment ensure that the court will find him guilty and is typified when Charlie states "Everyone I f---ed was in the business, I never hurt outsiders". Whilst it is true that criminals such as the Krays and the Richardson's were given larger sentences than normal it must be remembered that they were responsible for some rather gruesome crimes.
Despite the flaws within the film I have to say that I quite liked the film, I think that Luke Goss gives a good performance as Charlie Richardson I also found the film to be quite interesting and certainly better than I had expected after reading other reviews.
For those interested in British underworld during the 1960's Charlie is a film that is worth watching and with a running time of just 93 minutes is one of those films that is entertaining after a night out. There are far worse gangster films than this, however in terms of films based on real events Charlie is not as good as the Krays.
Charlie
Luke Goss teams up with Steven Berkoff to tell the real life story of 'Charlie Richardson'
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the head of the notorious 'torture gang'. In the sixties London was owned and ruled by two families north of the river the Krays the Richardsons to the south. No...
![Charlie [2004]](http://picnic.ciao.com/uk/65501021.jpg)
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