CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

SnoopyStyle Colonel Hyde invites seven other other disgruntled ex-military for a secret job. He's been forced to retire. Each one have some personal problems and were pushed out of the military. It turns out that the job is to rob a bank. Hyde proposes to split the money evenly. They steal to get equipment for the heist.The structure is fine. It's got the bones of a good bank heist movie. Many have followed using the same road map. I just didn't find any of the characters interesting. It doesn't help that I don't know these actors other than Richard Attenborough from when he's older. The start is slow and loses me a little. I couldn't really bother to follow each of these characters and their individual stories.

Prismark10 This is a stylish, cynical, hard yet bittersweet film. Its obviously influenced by the skills brought to Britain from the USA by those writers and directors blacklisted in the 1950s and gained work in the UK bringing a harder edged style of filmmaking that in turn influenced homegrown talent.Jack Hawkins is a retired army colonel, embittered in retirement and assembles a shady bunch of former officers with a crooked past. They need money and they have army training. The mission is to rob a bank in London and to prepare for it they need to carry out several other jobs.One of them being a raid at an army barracks to steal weapons which they blame on Irish dissidents.As the film begins we see these rogues in action, some of them living dissatisfied lives or being involved in petty criminal work. The chance of a big score looks like a godsend and they blend well together.Whereas in the early 1960s we still had films looking back to the war with stiff upper lips and a class structure, round the corner we were going to embark on the kitchen sink dramas heralding social change. The League of Gentleman is almost a bridge between these two styles of filmmaking.We have the plummy tones of Jack Hawkins as the Colonel, Nigel Patrick as Race calling everyone Darling. To more seedy characters such as Roger Livesey playing a padre with a suitcase full of glamour magazines and once caught arrested for indecency in a public toilet which at that time meant homosexual activities. He is not the only member of the gang who is implied to be gay. Director Basil Dearden made the film the Victim the following year which was upfront about the subject of homosexuality.Bryan Forbes who wrote and acted in this film is a gigolo, Terence Alexander is a cuckolded husband. Right from the off you see what looks like real people, who served in the war, made mistakes, some several times and struggling in Civvy Street. The hard edge continues during the bank robbery scene where the gang don gas masks and come in heavily armed.The film has elements of comedy as well, its not just an action thriller. Its very well acted, sharply written and due to the censorship laws of the time where the bad guys could not be seen to be getting away with their crimes. It really is a sucker punch that the Colonel's meticulous planning could not had anticipated that is their undoing.

dbborroughs This is a caper film that just kind of fell flat for me.The premise is that a forced to retire army officer gets together a bunch of disgraced army men to rob a bank. We watch as the plan is hatched, and executed in stages before the big job itself.While I like the idea of the film it just didn't work for me.It's much too talky so that it's kind of dull in an all talk no action sort of way. The real problem is the direction which is much too artificially staged. It's directed so everyone is always in a line up or standing so they are facing the camera. It weird and unnatural. It takes the edge off everything.It really fell flat for me and I ended up zipping through the last half hour because I had stopped caring

ianlouisiana After the second world war thousands of ex-servicemen,trained to use firearms,well-disciplined,ruthless and fit,found themselves rather unceremoniously made surplus to requirements.Whilst that might have suited the vast majority of conscripts,a significant number of former officers and NCOs who had been career soldiers felt embittered at being discarded - as they saw it - after having served their purpose. These men,quick - thinking,intelligent,resourceful and courageous,found themselves presented with the opportunity of either knuckling down to a life of stifling domesticity in which none of the attributes the army had encouraged and developed would be of any use to them,or the perceived excitement and glamour of a life of crime. It is perhaps not so surprising that a number of major robberies in post-war Britain were carried out by such men . Military Training was turning out to be a bit of a double - edged sword. Mr Jack Hawkins represents the "bad" side as the aptly named Colonel Hyde.He assembles a motley crew of ex - comrades down on their luck whom he coerces to rob a bank. After a lot of initial grumbling they all begin to enjoy the training, reminding them as it does of the army days.Gradually he moulds them into a team where the needs of the group supersede those of the individual. The highlight of the film without doubt is the long sequence where they raid an army base in broad daylight to obtain their weapons. Its depiction of the late 50s military mind is spot on and would have struck a chord with its contemporary audience,many of whom would have spent time in just such an establishment. The bank robbery itself goes off without a hitch,but the team are undone by a schoolboy indulging in the long - forgotten practise of "taking car numbers". "The League of Gentlemen" has a notable cast,the wonderful Mr Nigel Patrick being outstanding;his best role after Mr Jingle in "The Pickwick Papers". The British Cinema was blessed at that time with a positive cornucopia of versatile actors whose faces and voices remain in ones mind nearly half a century on.Mr Hawkins,MrLivesey,Mr Patrick,Mr Moore,Mr Forbes,Mr Attenborough.............I salute you all.A League of Gentlemen indeed.