User Reviews

Terrible title for this contemporary thriller, but get past that and you'll be rewarded with a gritty, twisty drama, well acted and well shot. It's not perfect, but spread over four nights on UK television, it rarely dragged and always seemed to have a plot development to keep the viewer on a hook.

Dougray Scott is fine as the gaunt, laconic ex-gangster, lured back to Manchester by the wiles of a sleazy Irish lawyer (played deliciously by Stephen Rea) and a means-to-an-end police commander, not above using Scott's own son as the cheese in their trap.

The direction is fluid, the background music accentuating the visuals with the tension kept palpable throughout and even if there were some aspects which I didn't like (the repugnant character of the 16 year old girl who ensnares Scott's son by killing a gang member and then sends lascivious pictures of herself to the dying big-shot prisoner who Scott's trapped into freeing), the whole rings pretty much true throughout, from the kidnapping of Scott's pregnant wife by a couple of bent Irish cops in Rea's pay, to the coercion of the family man prison officer to cooperate with the prison break and the final scenes of Scott revenging himself on Barrington and submitting to the time he must serve, even at the expense of missing his new child's birth and growth.

Okay, so I've no idea where Dougray's accent is meant to hail from and I could also have done without the anguished histrionics of Scott and son as they finally bond, but this was high quality TV and a welcome respite from the World Cup, at least for this viewer.

Michael O'Connor has given up the dangerous life of a gangster, for a nice quiet one in Ireland. However his son, Sean has taken up that particular life style and ends up in prison, for something he did not do. Michael must now delve back into that world of violence and bloodshed, crossing paths with criminals he once grew up with, to save his son.

This is perhaps the only and greatest Gangster show on British telly, and succeeds because of two things, the writing and the acting. Dougray gives perhaps his greatest performance as a man trying to change his life, his gaunt appearance only adds to the menace of Michael O'Connor,Dougray does not need to utter a word, his silence is deafening and when he does speak, his speech pattern is quite intimidating. While Reece Noi, who has starred in Waterloo Road, Byker Grove; I think...Gives a marvellous performance as the naive boy who has been wrapped up in a world that he obviously does not belong in. While, Terrence Maynard provides the fear,as the ruthless crime boss looking to lure Michael back, I've previously seen Maynard in Young Dracula, with his deep voice he was a comedy genius...But here he applies his voice in a way that scares you to the bone. The end does not let you down as you go through all the emotions.

One scene will always stick in my memory, when Michael O'Connor arrives at the police station and an officer asks for his name, when Michael replies, the officer looks up immediately terrified. The show does highlight gun crime in Manchester that is only reported on the news, yet television shows prefer to provide the audience with glamorous productions rather than portray reality.

Absolutely brilliant.