Why so much hype?

Highly Overrated But Still Good

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I must say, having lived in the East end of Glasgow all my life and not far from the films setting in Blackhill, I thought the accents were hilarious. I must admit, I quite like the actors - Martin Compston is a decent actor and so too is John Hannah. Regardless, some of my family still live in Provanmill/Blackhill, and I couldn't stop laughing at the accents! I mean, the guy that plays, is it Arthur Thomson. Didn't he have an Irish accent? Maybe they should have just kept with the good old Glaswegian accent and just subtitled it; like they normally do when English TV crews come here and interview Glaswegians for some documentary. That would have kept the authenticity perhaps. Nonetheless, is it a good film? It is a worth a watch if you are not Glaswegian, I think. For Glaswegians, especially for those of us who live in the East end, it borders on hilarity and not because of the content.The film deals with serious issues. It is just because the accents are so soft and out of context. And I know that they had to soften it for the purposes of a wider audience,but come on, no one in the east end of Glasgow speaks like that.

What a terrific crime movie this one and not in the line of so many other films that we see since nearly twenty years now, such as the Guy Ritchie's features: SNATCH and so many GOOD FELLAS look like movies, with plenty of humour. No, I would say that I was happily surprised by this brutal and very old vintage crime flick, as I crave for, especially from UK. Yes folks, an old vintage, that's the best word to describe it. The characters study and description is flawless, even if the criminal schemes code is rather foreseeable, but I don't care at all. I highly prefer this rise and fall topic to the todays productions, so complicated, so sophisticated. Those films which all look the same. I had the feeling to watch a movie from the seventies or the eighties. I thought of GET CARTER, for instance, or the KRAYS story.I will look for some other good UK crime stuff in the future.

British cinema has not been at its best in recent years. All of our most brilliant story tellers go to Hollywood. The story here is good. Compelling even. The main characters journey from scared boy to prolific gangster is a decent enough. Rather than being a bad story done well, this is a good story done badly. The writing isn't great, although the acting is for the most part decent. The film fails because the narrative is massively disjointed, which is a shame because the production values seem quite high and if a little more care had been taking in 'how' to tell this good story then it would have been a decent film. Watch if you have nothing better to do.

A film about infamous Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris, has long been in the pipeline. I remember hearing rumours off Robert Carlyle playing the part many years ago, and that would off been awesome! Now they've finally got round too making this controversial offering, you'd be hard pushed too find anyone better in the role than the largely unknown Martin Compston. Who does a great job here. Problem is a lot off the rest off the stars seem completely miscast in their roles, and a lot off this 80's/90's set story has clearly been filmed in the present day, with not much effort into making it look like otherwise.There's no doubt that there is a great story here, and I did enjoy the movie because off its complicated, based-on-true-events style plot. But for a film in development for so long, you'd think there would be more success in other parts off its production.John Hannah is only in the movie so people who are only interested in well known actors may watch it. Same with Patrick Bergin, Who doesn't pull off a Scottish accent. Its hard too know how much off the story is true as well, what with it being told from the perspective off Ferris (and being based on his book) with the parts that try too make him look as innocent as possible/try to make you sympathise with him falling flat, when you know a lot off the bad things that happened in the real life events that encouraged this movie, have been conveniently cut out.