FACE (1997)

Cast

Plot

Director Antonia Bird has triumphed where so many have failed since "The Long Good Friday", with a British crime thriller that actually works. Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty) is Ray, a politically correct armed robber who's gathered together a bunch of his fellow East End "faces" to pull off an ambitious raid on a London warehouse. Amongst his partners-in-crime are the old-fashioned gangster (Winstone), the alarming but amusing psycho (Davis) and the cocky young apprentice (Albarn) so inevitably things go horribly wrong. But this is much more than yet another "heist-gone-bad" caper, mainly by virtue of Bird's intelligent, meticulous direction, and criminally convincing performances from Carlyle and Winstone. A blindingly brilliant Brit flick.