Gangs of London - Season 1
GANGS OF LONDON - SKYMuch like the towers that dominate London’s skyline, The Raid director Gareth Evans’ gangland epic reaches dizzying heights. A collaboration between network giants, Sky and Cinemax, and shot by Evans’ long-time collaborator Matt Flannery (who also takes up producer duties), Gangs of London investigates the caustic trials and tribulations that occur when some of the capital’s most powerful criminals come under new leadership.
Every episode follows the same structure: charting the complex relations between the Wallace family and their associates before erupting into spectacular displays of violence. This repetitive approach avoids stagnation through the ambition of its story, alongside the awe-inspiring cinematic prowess of Evans’ action sequences. The issue with such a sprawling narrative focused on the interconnectivity between these gangs is that it can sometimes fall into the realms of convolution. Keeping track of so many characters with differing loyalties that ebb and flow from episode to episode can make the overarching plot challenging to follow, especially when they are picked up and dropped at the filmmaker’s convenience — leading to a sense of inconsistency. However, Evans does not take his audience for fools. He fully expects them to keep up with the multiplicity of subplots, refreshing in an age where television shows are susceptible to holding the viewer's hand. The vast majority of these branching stories remain engaging throughout, only stunted by the presence of a police perspective that buffers the otherwise breakneck pacing and intrigue of our lead characters. It comes off as a nagging force, detracting our attention from the most exciting elements of Evans’ show.
In a series abundant with strong-willed characters, each actor in this diverse cast thankfully performs worthy of the stage they have been set. Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole leads the way with a doe-eyed appearance as silenced, loose-cannon Sean Wallace. He hides an edge-of-your-seat unpredictability that his familiars regularly comment on, sometimes to the point of irritation. He is matched by Game of Thrones alum Michelle Fairley’s sadistic matriarch, a corruptive force in this weakening crime family and a complete 180 from her performance in HBO’s fantasy series. This duo, alongside a wonderfully dubious turn from Lucian Msamati, is our initial insight into this tight-knit community of sharp suits and gun crime. It is Sope Dirisu’s enforcer Eliot, however, that leaves the lasting impact in a star-making appearance as the conflicted, continuous heart of the narrative. Dirisu is left in charge of leading the majority of Evans’ claustrophobic confrontations alongside some heavy dramatic lifting, which he pulls off impeccably.
Mainstream media has gradually become more liberal with its graphic portrayals of violence, as is evident in box-office giants like Kingsman: The Secret Service and Netflix Originals like Evans’ previous directorial effort Apostle. Besides Matt Flannery’s ultra-stylised cinematography that illuminates the titular city and its surrounding countryside, he does an excellent job of establishing the geography of these environments amid madness. Late-season episodes do stammer the pacing as they swap out these bafflingly well-executed sequences in a rush to tie up loose ends, struggling to top the near-perfection of a blistering mid-season. Nonetheless, the final episode’s non-linear framing keeps the story engaging until its closing minutes. Despite an admittedly justified slower second-half, this is a series built from the ground up by action spectacle, from foundations that could not be stronger. It will have fans of action cinema salivating from the first shot fired.
Gangs of London is a remarkable example of the cinematic ability television has come to possess in recent years, with its fifth episode standing out as one of the best arguments viewers will find for small-screen narratives matching the scope of feature films. This is not one of Guy Ritchie’s ‘alright-guv’nor’ East End jollies, as entertaining as they are, but a layered crime saga bolstered with fight sequences and gunfights that are unmatched in the current visual field. The main antagonists do admittedly show up far too late in the game to cast a significant shadow, but the finale gasps for a second instalment. If the first season is at all evident of Evans and company’s intentions moving forward, then audiences better get a follow-up.
