TV and film in the new millennium

Introduction

American crime drama is in rude health, while the Scandinavian and the French are still producing work of real quality in the genre. But – perhaps in response to the high standard of material from abroad – British crime TV, and to some extent film, is similarly demonstrating a greater level of ambition and achievement. The following is a list of material from the last decade or so: the good, the bad and the indifferent. More space is given to those items that deserve it – for good or bad reasons – than to the indifferent category. Note that this section does not attempt to cover the whole range of British crime film and TV (this is a pocket guide, after all!); only the twenty-first century is included, and only film and TV with a contemporary setting. You’ll have to pick up my British Crime Film for anything else…

ABOVE SUSPICION (TV, 2009–12)

An efficiently made quartet of police procedurals based on Lynda La Plante’s novels. While popular, this quotidian series did not replicate the immense success of the writer’s Prime Suspect franchise with Helen Mirren.

ADULTHOOD (film, 2008, directed by Noel Clarke)

After the success of the earlier Kidulthood, misgivings about its director Noel Clarke were prompted by the film’s successor, Adulthood, in which earlier innovation had moved on to more well-worn lines. Clarke himself plays Sam, home from a prison sentence for murder and discovering that new young criminals have taken over the block. It is only a matter of time before his life is on the line. Sam comes to realise that there are three things he must tackle: his enemies, those he had victimised – and his own attitude to his behaviour and his society. The picture of London presented here is even bleaker than in the earlier film, with gun and knife crime now accepted as an essential part of life for these young people, but much of the film feels warmed over, with elements adapted from such models as Trainspotting.

ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN (film, 2013, directed by George Isaac)

All Things to All Men focuses on a lethal game of cat and mouse between a criminal and a policeman who operates according to his own rules. With a robust cast, including Gabriel Byrne, Rufus Sewell and Toby Stephens, there are echoes here (not to this film’s advantage) of James Ellroy’s LA Confidential, but the storytelling lacks the rigour of the original inspiration. In fact, the construction of the film’s narrative constantly beggars belief, but there is sufficient energy expended in its making to paper over some cracks.

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP (film, 2014, directed by Rowan Joffe)

SJ Watson’s megaselling novel – something of a publishing phenomenon – was an inevitable subject for filming, and received a perfectly creditable adaptation from Rowan Joffe (with a reliable cast of ubiquitous actors, including Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong). If the viewer’s pulse rate is not notably raised by the film, it may be due to the pronounced similarities with Christopher Nolan’s Memento – another film drama in which the central character’s daily battle with memory is the fulcrum of the plot, and with those around them not to be trusted. The reminiscences were more pointed up by the medium of film than in Watson’s novel.

THE BILL (TV, 1984–2010)

An institution among British cop shows, with pronounced soap opera elements, The Bill began in the 1980s and held a diminishing place on the airwaves until 2010, with a decade’s worth of episodes post-2000. Never exciting, but always reliable.

BLACK WORK (TV, 2015)

In recent years, certain actresses have acquired a quite formidable visibility on television, challenging the notion that audiences will grow tired of them because of such relentless overexposure. The most often seen in this familiar cadre is Olivia Colman, but her fellow thespian Sheridan Smith runs her a close second, appearing in a wide variety of dramas and giving a series of strikingly different performances. Matt Charman’s police drama, however, suggested a faltering for the actress, who seemed unable to bring any element of individuality to her standard policewoman, Leeds copper Jo Gillespie. In addition, the narrative quickly slid into a well-worn route – though that was hardly Smith’s fault. Gillespie’s life is thrown into chaos when her husband Ryan (played by Kenny Doughty) is killed while he is attempting to infiltrate a gang of gunrunners. His wife had not known anything about his covert activities, which included other controversial undercover work. But Jo had secrets too, as she had had an affair with a colleague of her husband. Trust is an issue in the drama, with truth being a very tenuous thing in this murky world. The problem with Black Work is its sense of overfamiliarity; there is really nothing here that viewers have not encountered previously.

BLITZ (film, 2011, directed by Elliott Lester)

The prolific Jason Statham gives virtually the same performance in almost everything he does, with no variation offered in his standard broken-nosed, balding geezer character. But there is no gainsaying his box office clout, or Statham’s abilities as a specific kind of actor (however circumscribed), especially when he allows himself to move slightly beyond the standard ‘killing machine’ persona. Blitz is based on the novel by the celebrated Irish novelist Ken Bruen, but most of the idiosyncratic qualities that distinguish his work are lost in the transition to film here. Nevertheless, this tale of a killer attempting to murder everyone he can in the police force uses its London locations well, and, after a slow start, exerts a hold.

BLUE MURDER (TV, 2003–09)

The creation of the talented writer Cath Staincliffe (also responsible for writing several key episodes), the unusual concept here involves a detective who is an overworked single mother of four juggling a demanding career with raising a young family. However, the capable actress Caroline Quentin was unwisely encouraged to channel her cosy popularity as a crowd-pleasing star of undemanding fare, blunting the edge of Staincliffe’s original premise.

THE BODY FARM (TV, 2011)

Lasting only one brief season, this was a reasonably entertaining forensic police procedural spin-off from Waking the Dead. Created by Declan Croghan, this watchable series stars Tara Fitzgerald and Keith Allen (the latter playing very much to caustic type) and features scientists with less than rigorous standards and a maverick police inspector who crack a baffling crime. The characters are generally by-the-numbers, but the actors – notably Fitzgerald – manage to bring some vivacity to their underwritten parts.

BONDED BY BLOOD (film, 2010, directed by Sacha Bennett)

Sacha Bennett tackles this tale of drug dealers and career criminals under the cosh of overfamiliar, intractable material, partly redeemed by a well-cast Vincent Regan and Neil Maskell, who are impressive in the leading roles. This is yet another version of the real-life Essex boys murders, previously tackled in the films Essex Boys in 2000 and Rise of the Foot Soldier in 2007. In the final analysis, Bennett is able to do little more with this now familiar material than his predecessors – and the increasingly discredited and shop-worn mockney accoutrements drag the film down further.

BROADCHURCH (TV, 2013–)

Certain syndromes develop among crime drama viewers; there was the shamefaced apology that became necessary for not having seen The Killing, invariably followed by the words: ‘But I’ve got the box set!’ The British TV drama Broadchurch enjoyed a similar cultish devotion, with the detective protagonists Hardy and Miller – and, among others, a suspicious vicar – becoming objects of fascination. Crucial to the success of the show were the well-rounded, conflicted characters, and in particular the performances by David Tennant and the omnipresent Olivia Colman (see p181); the vivid picture of a community under siege from an undiscovered murderer was less important than the various uncomfortable personal interactions. The show was also a demonstration of the continuing influence of Nordic Noir in its measured, psychologically acute approach to the material, not to mention the desaturated visuals. The drama is full of beautifully observed brief moments that add to the texture; they even helped deal with the irritated reception that the second series prompted. David Tennant, an actor who (at the time) could do no wrong with audiences, adds to the lustre. The writer Erin Kelly fed the post-Broadchurch appetite with new short stories, sanctioned by the creator Chris Chibnall.

BULLET BOY (film, 2004, directed by Saul Dibb)

Bullet Boy covers familiar urban crime territory, with its cast augmented by non-acting rappers who know the world of drugs and guns personally. As in Fernando Meirelles’ sprawling City of God, we are given an unvarnished panoply of young lives being squandered in pointless criminality and excess. The film has energy but is dispiriting in its bleak, pitiless vision.

BURNSIDE (TV, 2000)

A passable one-season spin-off from The Bill.

CASE HISTORIES (TV, 2011–13)

Proof (if proof were needed) that the fine art of casting is crucial to any television series is provided by the fact that Jason Isaacs, playing Kate Atkinson’s wayward detective Jackson Brodie, is the reason this show has a following, rather than any faithfulness to Atkinson’s quirky original. Brodie, ex-soldier and policeman turned private investigator, is incarnated perfectly by Isaacs, particularly the customary chaotic private life of the central character – always at sixes and sevens as he pursues whatever case he is working on. One thing that is less successful in the adaptation is the handling of the various interlocking plots, which seem to hang as separate integuments, unlike in the well-integrated novels. But there is an excellent use of locales, and even close attention to the use of language, which is never simply functional.

CASE SENSITIVE (TV, 2011–12)

When executive Mark Bretherick returns from a Swiss business trip, he discovers the bodies of his wife and daughter in a bath tub. While the deaths give the appearance of suicide, there is no note – nor, for that matter, any motive. Police Chief Proust, played by Peter Wight, hands the case to a transferee from London, DS Charlie Zailer (Olivia Williams). Despite a lack of confidence, she finds herself becoming ever more involved in the case. Sporting smart writing, this is a winning TV crime drama.

CHASING SHADOWS (TV, 2014)

A missing persons unit is tasked with tracking down killers who target vulnerable victims. The series is strongly cast, with Reece Shearsmith and Alex Kingston, and it builds its world steadily across the four parts of the show. The quirky Shearsmith impresses as a detective who can barely control his personal life, needing someone who organises everything from his meals to his clothes. His is a distinctive character in a drama that is not able to avoid clichés.

CODE OF A KILLER (TV, 2015)

The BBC’s hegemony in creating quality crime drama was rivalled by ITV with such series as Code of a Killer, a taut two-parter that did not have time to accrue the audience that was its due. John Simm, an actor much utilised by ITV, plays a genetic researcher, Jeffreys, who fails to pay close attention to his duties as a husband and father. Thoroughly concerned with looking into the mysteries of the genetic code, Jeffreys is a single-minded workaholic. DCS David Baker (played by David Threlfall – always reliable) is involved in an investigation in the nearby village of Narborough – two 15-year-old girls have died over a two-year period. Inevitably, Baker enlists Jeffreys’ aid in the investigation, and the clash between the socially challenged scientist and the grim copper, while all too familiar, is written and played to maximum effect. One caveat, though: the series appears to be as interested in the minutiae of Jeffreys’ investigation as the scientist himself, and the extensive lab detail is simply not as interesting as the director James Strong clearly considers it to be.

COLD BLOOD (TV, 2007–09)

The familiar ‘police turn to serial killer for aid’ scenario gets a routine airing in this by-the-numbers ITV outing.

CONVICTION (TV, 2004)

A capable six-part BBC crime drama that was subsequently retooled as a US series.

DARK RAGE (film, 2008, directed by Lee Akehurst)

The central character in Lee Akehurst’s Dark Rage is an ordinary man in his fifties, regarded by those around him as a solid father, amiable work colleague and non-exploitative landlord. But he has an unpleasant secret: he is a mass murderer, and beneath the placid surface lies the ‘dark rage’ of the title. Christopher Dunne is persuasive in the central role, and there is a canny balancing act between the crime and horror film genres, satisfyingly explored through the notion of two serial killers sharing the same house.

DON’T HANG UP (film, 2015, directed by Damien Macé and Alexis Wajsbrot)

While the basic premise here is hardly new – drunken prank calls are turned viciously against the pranksters when a stranger turns the tables in lethal fashion – it is handled reasonably capably in this 2015 film, which synthesises the crime genre with the macabre.

DOWN TERRACE (film, 2009, directed by Ben Wheatley)

In 2009, Ben Wheatley, bristling with ambition, delivered a calling-card movie with this claustrophobic study of twisted human behaviour, set largely in a cluttered house in Brighton. The film fuses the mechanics of the crime thriller with quirky character observation à la Mike Leigh; and while the result is sometimes torpedoed by the inexperience of the non-professional actors involved (the cast includes Julia Deakin, Kerry Peacock and Robin Hill), there is undoubtedly evidence here of a truly original, if unpolished, cinematic sensibility. Down Terrace showed that Wheatley was destined to do idiomatic work in the future – as was proved to be the case with the director’s next film, Kill List, which was undoubtedly his breakthrough work.

Down Terrace investigates the eccentricities and betrayals within a bizarre family unit, peppering its unconventional narrative with the incendiary behaviour of its volatile characters and with some particularly savage and gruesome killings – it is a crime movie, after all. The father and son in the family that Wheatley presents are bottom-feeding, minor-league drug dealers who have managed to escape jail after a court hearing goes (surprisingly) in their favour. What follows is the pursuit of the person who sold them down the river, but these two are far from being smoothly functioning crime machines. The father has hints of leftover attitudes from his counterculture days, and he’s saddled with a son who can barely hold together a succession of incandescent rages. As the cryptic and banal banter between the two (principally concerning substance abuse) is ratcheted ever higher, the audience appears to be watching a dark social comedy, but memories of Mike Leigh and company are summarily obliterated as the corpses begin to pile up bloodily. If Ben Wheatley’s concatenation of different genres is only fitfully successful here, his subsequent film was to prove much more effective.

THE DRIVER (TV, 2014)

Those impressed by David Morrissey’s unsmiling turn as Mark Billingham’s copper Tom Thorne were hoping for further appearances by the actor in the role, but they had to content themselves with this glum but effective piece in which the eponymous driver Morrissey finds himself involved – against his better judgement – with ruthless criminals. The title may have suggested a kinship with Walter Hill’s cool existential drama of the same name, but this was a much more British, and less pared-down, outing.

EASTERN PROMISES (film, 2007, directed by David Cronenberg)

David Cronenberg may have made his mark with a series of utterly uncompromising syntheses of horror and science fiction elements, but by the time of Eastern Promises he had demonstrated that his ambitions had spread much further. His earlier adaptation of the graphic novel A History of Violence had shown his authority in the realm of crime fiction, consolidated by this film’s complex and textured vision of a London underworld that has become distinctly multicultural. A nurse delivers the child of a dying teenage prostitute who was working for the Russian mafia. What follows is a deceptive narrative in which Viggo Mortensen plays a soldier who works for a murderous crime syndicate. Steven Knight’s screenplay is full of authentic detail, particularly regarding the Russian mob and its complex lore and codes. Cronenberg always remembers that character (customarily quirky in his case) is quite as important as the visceral excitement of the physical violence.

THE FALL (TV, 2013–)

The first series of The Fall was deeply controversial, with its uncompromising picture of a terrifying serial killer’s invasions of the homes of his unlucky female targets. The gruesome murders and the fetishised treatment of the corpses also upset many. In the second series, which continues the hunt for the killer Paul Spector (a strong, unsettling performance by Jamie Dornan), there is evidence that the show’s more controversial aspects have been toned down somewhat. Central to the narrative here is the single-minded woman on the track of the murderer, Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson in the latest of a series of remarkable performances for British television, post-X-Files). British viewers were glued to their seats, although female complaints about the series continued. The Fall, along with such dramas as Peaky Blinders (not considered here due to its period setting), confirmed that British crime drama in 2013/14 was on something of a roll. Writer Allan Cubitt’s evocation of the streets of Belfast has a striking verisimilitude, evoking in unequivocal terms the troubled, violent past of the city. The second series demonstrates an attempt to explore in greater depth the psychology of its two central characters.

FILTH (film, 2013, directed by Jon S. Baird)

To some degree, each new all-the-stops-out film featuring a corrupt policeman (a genre in itself) is obliged to raise the bar in terms of the truly appalling behaviour of the protagonist: in this acerbic version of Irvine Welsh’s novel, an unbuttoned James McAvoy does just that, with sufficient doses of black humour to keep a shell-shocked grin on the face of the viewer. Detective Bruce Robertson is investigating a gangland killing, but his agenda is something other than bringing unpleasant criminals to justice. He is after a promotion that will grant him real power in the department. And as he attempts to finesse his career, with a series of no-holds-barred strategies, we are shown a truly dark and phantasmagoric Scottish criminal universe in which Robertson encounters transvestite prostitutes, youthful drug addicts and punk anarchists – all of whom learn that the policeman is not a man to cross. As a vision of one man’s descent into the underworld, Filth is initially fascinating, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in some distance before the end.

FROM DARKNESS (TV, 2015)

We’ve been here before – many times. Depressed female copper, fallings-out with superiors, unsolved cases, murdered prostitutes. At least a glum Anne-Marie Duff (always reliable) lends dramatic force to the overfamiliar elements.

FROM THERE TO HERE (TV, 2014)

This miniseries from 2014 focuses on the changes in the life of a man after the IRA bomb in Manchester in 1996. The cast includes such dependable actors as Philip Glenister, Steven Mackintosh and Saskia Reeves, and follows the aftermath of the Arndale bombing as the protagonist Daniel Cotton, a family man, attempts to deal with the fall-out of the atrocity. The piece is more straightforward drama than crime, but utilises elements of the crime genre.

GANGSTER NO. 1 (film, 2000, directed by Paul McGuigan)

Director Paul McGuigan’s entry in the burgeoning London gangster genre is markedly different from many of the other films that began to appear around the year 2000, most notably in its commendable and refreshing lack of mockney humour. This is truly a scarifying piece of work, building its razor-sharp narrative around the picture of a British criminal of almost preternatural force, only ever identified in the film as ‘Gangster’. Audaciously, Gangster No. 1 begins with the violent protagonist, played by Malcolm McDowell (an actor with a resonance of menace stretching back to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), luxuriating in the position he has so brutally achieved. But the great majority of the film deals with the gangster’s younger days – and in the 1960s flashbacks he is played by the smooth-faced Paul Bettany, although the voiceover for the character is still McDowell. Bettany’s character is the protégé of a criminal known as the ‘Butcher of Mayfair’, Freddie Mays (chillingly played by David Thewlis); he is a smoother piece of work than his violent pupil. The bloody story is told in a completely uncompromising fashion, with some striking pieces of technique, such as the image on the screen shattering then coming together again.

The story of a mobster’s rise to power through a series of murderous acts is, of course, desperately overfamiliar, but McGuigan manages to give everything a sinister and unfeeling sheen, relying on some particularly striking performances – notably from Bettany, knowingly ushering in a stellar career. There is the inevitable conflict between the self-made killer and the man who was his patron (Freddie Mays has been languishing in prison, put there by his protégé), and the way this confrontation is handled is as eye-opening as anything else in the film. The visceral violence in the film is utterly unsparing and makes Gangster No. 1 a poor choice for squeamish audiences. We are shown that unbending force of personality is required to achieve success in this pitiless world, and once again a metaphor for success in the unshown non-criminal world is stressed.

THE GOOD THIEF (film, 2002, directed by Neil Jordan)

Many felt that the director Neil Jordan’s talent had deserted him when he produced such woeful, heavy-handed comedies as High Spirits and We’re No Angels, the box-office failure of both being matched by the critical opprobrium heaped upon them. But more good work lay ahead for the director, such as an arresting adaptation of Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy, a film boasting some deft insights into the influence of the media. And another ambitious and visually striking crime film was Jordan’s hit-or-miss version of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur (as The Good Thief), which demonstrated (if nothing else) the director’s chutzpah in taking on Melville in this territory, and showcased a magnetic turn from Nick Nolte as the drug-addicted gambler protagonist, whispering every line of dialogue but largely comprehensible. While never neglecting his Celtic origins, Neil Jordan has repeatedly shown his willingness to work on a large canvas and tackle subjects far removed from his native Ireland.

THE GRIND (film, 2012, directed by Rishi Opel)

The eponymous ‘Grind’ is a nightclub in Hackney, East London. It is a place where sex and drugs reign and ruthless loan sharks coexist uneasily with vulnerable punters, while the manager Vince (played by Freddie Connor) tries to hang on to the job and lifestyle he has managed to land for himself. But a friend from school, Bobby (Gordon Alexander), is released from prison, and Bobby’s cocaine addiction and gambling habit destroy the friendship – particularly as he owes a massive amount of money to Vince’s boss, owner of The Grind and an uncompromising loan shark. A powerful ensemble cast makes this work, and the directing (by Rishi Opel) holds things together with rigour. There are signs of compromises due to budgetary restrictions, and the female characters are underwritten, but there are good things here.

HACKNEY’S FINEST (film, 2014, directed by Chris Bouchard)

Hackney’s Finest, directed in 2014 by Chris Bouchard, features characters that we’ve seen many times before but introduces some striking changes to the formula. A low-level drug dealer becomes involved with a bent London copper who attempts to steal a consignment destined for Welsh-Jamaican Yardies. This is a darkly comic thriller with some nice observation concerning its multi-ethnic cast of characters.

HAPPY VALLEY (TV, 2014–)

In the serried ranks of British police dramas, Sally Wainwright’s six-part Happy Valley made a considerable impression, largely because of its faultless casting of the actress Sarah Lancashire as policewoman Catherine Cawood, dealing with a series of particularly violent crimes. The plot involved the ramifications of a kidnapping in the West Yorkshire valleys, set against the troubled personal lives of its protagonists. While such series as The Fall invited criticism for the graphic violence, Happy Valley – while often unsparing in this area – was spared such opprobrium, possibly because of the comforting presence of Lancashire, more customarily associated with softer, less demanding fare – a canny move by the producers.

HARRY BROWN (film, 2009, directed by Daniel Barber)

Much handwringing commentary followed the 2011 riots (which began in London then quickly spread throughout Britain), especially regarding the role of the police. It was initially felt that they had adopted an ill-advised ‘softly softly’ approach when the violence began, and had not intervened in the early stages of rioting and looting. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular aspect of a troubled period, there was one significant development. While the right-wing press inevitably called for Draconian treatment of the rioters (who were described by some politicians as members of a feral underclass, but who counted among their number teachers and other professionals), the expected liberal critique of such calls to action from more left-of-centre members of society was not as forthcoming as might have been expected. Was this because Britons of most classes had been able to see the smoke of burning stores, either on television or from their own windows, and had experienced a revision of the usual attempts to understand the causes of such behaviour? Daniel Barber’s film Harry Brown (with Michael Caine) predated the looting of electronics and clothes stores, but featured in prescient fashion one much-discussed aspect of the riots: the dangers of ordinary people attempting to intervene when violence erupts.

HINTERLAND (TV, 2014–15)

Word of mouth began very quickly concerning the high quality of this mesmeric Welsh crime series, and Swansea-born playwright Ed Thomas’s debut detective drama was widely perceived as being influenced by the wave of Scandinavian crime shows. The writer himself has claimed that he was familiar only with the Swedish Wallander and wanted to create four separate films with a powerfully evoked sense of locale and a focus on the dark psyche of his troubled detective. Set in the coastal town of Aberystwyth, the series was made in both Welsh and English, but viewers of the original showing on BBC4 were instantly persuaded by the extremely atmospheric and individual writing. The star of the show, actor Richard Harrington, has created something subtly new in the long line of alienated detectives, but it really is the writing and direction of this series that have generated an audience for the show – an audience that, in large part, would normally steer well clear of such defiantly Welsh material.

HYENA (film, 2014, directed by Gerard Johnson)

In present-day London, bent copper Michael Logan of the Met’s narcotics task force is dealing with his own addiction and an arrangement with a member of a Turkish drug cartel who is subsequently murdered. Directed with some panache by Gerard Johnson (who made the similarly violent Tony in 2009), this pitch-black, bloody but often very funny effort showcases a grandstanding turn by Peter Ferdinando (the star of the director’s earlier film) as the self-destructive, out-of-control central character. What particularly distinguishes Johnson’s Hyena is the fact that he is clearly aware of the depressing pitfalls of the generic London gangster film, and clearly hankers for the days of such pre-mockney glories as The Long Good Friday and Performance. Apart from aiming for the texture of those films (notably missing from so much contemporary product), there are elements of both the French and American approaches to the crime genre as the director eschews the self-indulgence that has become the norm. Particularly notable is the treatment of the police protagonist: while being an efficient member of the task force, Logan is a damaged, coke-using figure who has lost any moral compass he may once have possessed in this utterly unsparing picture of corruption. There are, of course, echoes here of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, but without the latter’s Catholicism and sexual indulgence set against the massive self-destructiveness. The principal influence on the film, though, is clearly French crime director Jean-Pierre Melville, who continues to influence young filmmakers, particularly now that his films are gradually appearing on DVD.

ILL MANORS (film, 2012, directed by Ben Drew)

The British crime film has had a long and prestigious history, but how has it developed in the twenty-first century? Is the genre still alive and kicking? It most certainly is – and proof of that was provided by the directorial debut of Ben Drew, Ill Manors. The film demonstrates that the defining locale of modern British crime movies is no longer the police station or seedy Soho nightclub, but the graffiti-ridden, drug-focused urban scene, usually evoked in the most unsparing and caustic of fashions – precisely what Drew does here. The tough narrative centres on eight protagonists living in Forest Gate in East London and follows their often hopeless lives over a course of days as their various grim stories perform an awkward dance. As a picture of modern Britain, this is a film that pulls absolutely no punches but makes for utterly riveting viewing, even if its conclusions are hardly hopeful. Film aficionados will sincerely wish that Drew spends much more time making movies such as this rather than following his other career as a rapper – we have plenty of interchangeable rappers appearing on a daily basis, but few filmmakers with his obvious talents.

I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD (film, 2003, directed by Mike Hodges)

The veteran director Mike Hodges regained in the twenty-first century some of the inventiveness and inspiration that distinguished his best work, notably Croupier, which starred Clive Owen as the morally compromised title character (he also plays the lead character in I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead). Hodges aficionados, while acknowledging that later work does not match the achievement of the director’s signature film, Get Carter, can nevertheless discern that he still has much to offer the cinema. The director also began writing quirky crime fiction, though that made less of an impression than his film work such as I’ll Sleep.

IN BRUGES (film, 2008, directed by Martin McDonagh)

This blackly comic picture of two squabbling criminals abroad quickly achieved cult status. The two Irish hitmen Ken and Ray (wonderfully played by Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as a kind of violent counterpart to Laurel and Hardy) are dispatched by their psychotic boss Harry (played by Ralph Fiennes) to escape from the heat they are feeling after the maladroit handling of a recent hit, and are languishing in the beautiful city of Bruges. And as we watch the divisive but oddly affectionate relationship between the two men (with the older Ken assuming a fatherly role), it’s clear that trouble is brewing – Harry’s violent intervention comes as absolutely no surprise. Farrell in particular is a delight as the none-too-bright Ray, but it’s invidious to single anyone out in an ensemble cast as strong as this one.

INSIDE MEN (TV, 2012)

In this 2012 miniseries, a group of employees at a security depot make plans to bring off a multi-million-pound robbery. With Steven Mackintosh giving the assembled cast a definite heft, the impressive pacing here is the thing to note, along with a careful attention to plausible detail that makes the viewer buy pretty well everything they are witnessing.

ISLE OF DOGS (film, 2011, directed by Tammi Sutton)

London gangland boss Darius Deel is not pleased to find that his new trophy wife Nadia is having sex with another man. He hunts down the lover, Riley, and a violent series of confrontations follow. Directed by Tammi Sutton and written by the excellent Sean Hogan (who, it should be said, disowns the film), some elements here are familiar, but there are things that pass muster.

JACK TAYLOR (TV, 2010–13)

With Iain Glen in typically acerbic form as Ken Bruen’s tenacious Galway private investigator, there was a guarantee of quality here before a frame of film was shot, and the use of vividly realised locales is another plus. As is the examination of Taylor’s character, with both its virtues and flaws – regarding the latter, when Taylor is asked to talk about his emotions, he points out that Irish males of his generation carefully repress such things.

JOHNNY WAS (film, 2006, directed by Mark Hammond)

Attempting to escape a difficult past in Ireland, Johnny Doyle (played by Vinnie Jones) flees the country and goes to earth in London. His former mentor, Flynn (Patrick Bergin), escapes from Brixton prison determined to derail the Irish peace process by means of a bombing campaign. The duo find themselves together in a polyglot household that is a microcosm of modern British society. While Jones is hardly stretched in his customary thuggish persona, the unusual central issue here is well handled, and some will like the insistent reggae soundtrack (though not this writer).

KILL LIST (film, 2011, directed by Ben Wheatley)

The extra command of the film medium that director Ben Wheatley had gained since the hit-and-miss but promising Down Terrace was immediately apparent here, although initially the spliced-together elements appear to consist of Pinteresque comedy of menace and the overfamiliar machinations of two hitmen attempting to carry out a murder in the face of a series of disasters. More than in his previous film, Wheatley establishes a verisimilitude in his detailed portrayal of contemporary Britain, with an Afghanistan war veteran, Jay (Neil Maskell) living an unsatisfying life in an unprepossessing house with his wife and son. Jay’s debts are prodigious, and after a deeply uncomfortable dinner party, Jay decides to get the money he needs by taking on some contract killings with Gal (Michael Smiley) for a sinister figure played by Struan Rodger. Once again we have the odd couple relationship between two hitmen, although this is a much more sophisticated treatment of the theme than in previous films. Ultimately, Wheatley takes the viewer by the throat and the film begins a slow and terrifying journey into a true heart of darkness.

LAW & ORDER: UK (TV, 2009–14)

Against the odds, this British riff on the durable American show has now stretched to eight profitable if formulaic series.

LAYER CAKE (film, 2004, directed by Matthew Vaughn)

Among the filmmakers who Guy Ritchie may be said to have inspired is one of his ex-partners, the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels producer Matthew Vaughn, who directed his own striking and individual crime film in 2004. As well as being a substantial piece of work in its own right – and one of the better British crime movies appearing at a time when the great majority were already proving dispiriting and underachieving – Layer Cake also showcases a career-making performance by an ice-cool Daniel Craig, whose assumption of the role of James Bond was two years in the future. Craig plays a moderately successful London cocaine dealer (the film grants him no name – and makes no moral judgement on his dubious choice of career) and the narrative describes the protagonist’s dizzying journey from small-time dealer to top-of-the-tree success, even as he aids in the search for a young woman, the daughter of a colleague of his boss. His other agenda while undertaking this task is to shift a large amount of stolen ecstasy. The author of the original novel, JJ Connolly, had been conscious that much fiction portrayed London criminals as none-too-bright thugs, and had personal experience of men involved in criminality who were far from stupid – and to whom violence was very much a last resort. Their reasons for being in the crime business did not involve the enhancement of their macho reputations but were directly – and simply – pecuniary. And the illegality of drugs paved the way for such enterprise. The notion that crime was being written about by observers who were naïve about professional criminals inspired Connolly to insert a new level of verisimilitude into his writing.

Matthew Vaughn’s career was to take unexpected turns in the future, with such crowd-pleasing pieces as the over-the-top and parodic superhero fantasy Kick-Ass, but at this point he is content to deliver a piece that is much more linear and integrated than the work of his ex-colleague Guy Ritchie. Layer Cake boasts the strikingly authoritative Daniel Craig performance mentioned above (which trades in understatement, one of the actor’s strongest suits), but it also delivers the goods when high-voltage action sequences are required. Interestingly, despite the film’s attempts to retain a cool distance from its protagonist, it was clear from early showings that audience involvement was considerable, something of a testament to both Craig’s performance and Vaughn’s direction – and viewers were clearly ready to maintain a certain moral equivocation, whatever their view of real-life drug dealers.

LEGEND (film, 2015, directed by Brian Helgeland)

The Krays? Again? Apart from various films in which the East End gangsters appear undisguised, such as Peter Medak’s violent The Krays in 1990, there have been films featuring villains clearly inspired by the brothers; the latter include Michael Tuchner’s Villain, featuring Richard Burton as a gay crime boss who is essentially a composite of the twins. So any new riff on the brothers (East End celebrities visited by American stars such as Judy Garland, always nice to their beloved, ever-indulgent mother, and only killing their own kind, as their apologists routinely say) has to offer something new – as does the ambitious Legend, with Tom Hardy playing both twins courtesy of various cinematic tricks and cleverly differentiating the murderous duo. Hardy is value for money as ever (he seems to be in every other movie made in 2013–15), but the film finds no satisfactory equivalent for Billie Whitelaw’s adored (and adoring) matriarch in the Medak film.

THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMSON (film, 2015, directed by Robert Carlyle)

Based on Douglas Lindsay’s novel, the directorial debut of the actor Robert Carlyle aims hopefully for black comedy, with the actor himself playing (against type) the eponymous Barney, close-mouthed and insecure, who accidentally murders his boss with a pair of scissors and finds himself inexplicably linked to a busy serial killer cutting a swathe across Scotland. Carlyle’s attempt to move away from his customary threatening screen persona to create a weak and vacillating character is not successful, and the director/actor encourages Ray Winstone as a vulgarian police inspector and Emma Thompson as Barney’s battle-axe mother to pitch their performances far too broadly. A reminder that actors do not always make the best directors.

LINE OF DUTY (TV, 2012–)

Policeman Steve Arnott finds himself transferred to the police anti-corruption unit when a man is shot during a counterterrorist operation. Starring Martin Compston, this effort is another in the line of shows (and books) that present the internal affairs unit – policemen investigating policemen – in a positive light, rather than the customary characterisation of these officers as weasels and rats (another example of the syndrome can be found in Ian Rankin’s books featuring Malcolm Fox).

LONDON BOULEVARD (film, 2010, directed by William Monahan)

In this 2010 film, an ex-con (played by Colin Farrell) attempts to go straight by doing odd jobs for an actress living in seclusion, but criminal associates from his past have other ideas. Farrell may be a variable actor, but when at his best he is mesmerising, as in London Boulevard. And while this adaptation of Ken Bruen’s novel was controversially received, there are many good things in it, for all its flaws.

LONDON ROAD (film, 2015, directed by Rufus Norris)

Starting life as a National Theatre production in 2011, this unusual film deals with an Ipswich community that was rocked by the serial murders of a group of sex workers in 2006. Ironically, the killings had the effect of binding the community together. Rufus Norris’s film recreates the unorthodox ‘musical’ format of the stage show, although the various musical interludes are integrated into the dialogue in a fashion notably different from conventional musicals. A strong ensemble cast renders the transition from stage almost (but not quite) seamless.

LUTHER (TV, 2010–15)

American audiences had no idea when watching the cult David Simon show The Wire that two of its most magnetic stars were British actors using impeccable American accents. On their return to Britain, Dominic West found much work – as did Idris Elba. Tall, charismatic and imposing, Elba’s renewed UK presence clearly called out for a showy role – which he duly received as the maverick cop Luther in a series which upped the ante for TV violence and was pitched in terms of its playing at nigh-operatic level. While the show enjoyed healthy viewing figures, it quickly became apparent that there was very little attempt at any kind of verisimilitude, and the series frequently strayed into the bizarre and the unbelievable, much to its detriment. But, as a vehicle for Elba, it did the trick, and an even more illustrious film career for the actor followed.

MAD DOGS (TV, 2011–13)

Philip Glenister, John Simm and Marc Warren head the cast in this laddish drama, which centres on the reunion of four old sixth-form friends who take a trip to Mallorca to visit the fifth member of the group. But then events begin to take a spectacularly dangerous direction. With naturalistic acting and a wry attitude to its distinctly fallible protagonists, this is a series that largely overcomes its unpromising premise.

MIDSOMER MURDERS (TV, 1997–)

The title alone produces derisory chuckles among many hard-core crime fiction fans who regard it as the cosiest of cosy shows. Inaugurated in 1997, this coy, self-mocking series (initially based on Caroline Graham’s novels) is still running, with many of its 100-plus episodes post-Millennium. The show has a contemporary setting, though it is notably twee and inoffensive, redolent of an earlier era. A massive hit, for some reason, in the Nordic Noir territory of Denmark.

THE MISSING (TV, 2014–15)

Equipped with a lustrous new crown of hair, the actor James Nesbitt proved that he was still to be taken seriously in this taut series, which quickly became required viewing for many in the UK. The opening episode established an instant grip with its plot based on the real-life disappearance of the young Madeleine McCann, a case that has furnished an endlessly replenished, deeply unilluminating series of stories in various newspapers, despite the fact that the little girl remains unfound. The Missing follows the increasingly desperate attempts by a troubled father (played by Nesbitt) to find out whether or not his son Oliver, who disappeared while the family were on holiday in France, is still alive. With a timeframe that alternates between past and present, the real interest here lies in Nesbitt’s powerful performance as the distraught father, a performance made all the more worthwhile by the actor’s refusal to seek out any easy routes to sympathy. The sense of alienation is powerfully conveyed, particularly as the parents cannot speak French, and the always beautifully photographed locales do not vitiate the anguish of the central situation.

MURDER INVESTIGATION TEAM (TV, 2003–05)

Bearing conspicuous evidence of solid research, this CSI-style spin-off was executive-produced by The Bill’s Paul Marquess and ran for two series. Heading the team for Series One is forthright DI Vivien Friend and her more intuitive second-in-command Rosie MacManus; Series Two sees old-school copper Trevor Hands taking the reins under DCI Anita Wishart. Their approaches sometimes clash, but all are polished professionals whose work demands a meticulous process of profiling, forensics and reconstruction, tracing the most intimate details of a victim’s life to identify motive and murderer. Murder Investigation Team was the second post-watershed series spawned by The Bill, the UK’s longest-running police procedural drama. Sharing its parent show’s realism but denuded of soap-style content, this altogether darker series centres on an elite unit tackling homicide in the capital – from drive-by shootings to ritual murder.

MURDERLAND (TV, 2009)

Kept afloat by the sizeable and boisterous talent of Robbie Coltrane, this was a three-part ITV miniseries that was unfairly neglected.

NCS: MANHUNT (TV, 2002)

Underplaying rather than overplaying, David Suchet demonstrates that there is life post-Poirot in this otherwise routine crime series.

NEW TRICKS (TV, 2003–15)

Before the show visibly ran out of steam (very publicly signalled by several actors leaving the show, having critically noted that it had lost its original character and novelty), this undemanding audience-pleaser cannily rang the changes on its basic formula of three past-their-best but still intuitive coppers whipped into shape by a tough female boss. The latter was played by Amanda Redman, and it was the actress’s departure from the show that led to some of the other actors – such as Dennis Waterman – publicly expressing their unhappiness with the state of the series. The notion of ageing curmudgeons who are deeply distrustful of contemporary technologies but nevertheless manage to pinch the bad guys proved to have a durable appeal – for a time, at least.

NO OFFENCE (TV, 2015–)

No Offence, a self-consciously outrageous take on the police procedural, follows a group of police officers tackling the less salubrious face of Manchester. Inspector Vivienne Deering, the station’s tough and sardonic chief, is in charge of a team led by DC (and single mother) Dinah Kowalska and the repressed DS Joy Freers. Channel 4 publicity hopefully described the show as ‘raucous, riotous and razor sharp’ and also played up the fact that it was ‘a new and completely original take on the world of the police procedural’. In the final analysis, this encomium was somewhat hopeful, but there is much that is original and entertaining here, with some energetic performances by its largely female cast keeping energy levels high.

REBUS (TV, 2000–07)

After the miscasting of the too-youthful John Hannah as Ian Rankin’s tough Edinburgh copper, the TV Rebus found its feet with the more lived-in, acerbic presence of Ken Stott – although Rankin once told this writer: ‘Even Ken Stott is not the Rebus I have in my head!’ Rebus is confrontational, struggles with the bottle, ignores the rules, and, in thematic terms, carries echoes of two of the author’s key influences – Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, notably in terms of the duality of Rebus and even of his stamping ground, the city of Edinburgh, which bifurcates into the New Town and the history-heavy, atmospheric Old Town (with its repressive Calvinist history). All of these elements surface – fitfully – in the TV adaptations.

THE RETURN (TV, 2003)

Julie Walters essayed her considerable skills in a worthy, if conventional, psychological thriller. Walters plays Lizzie Hunt, a woman facing a difficult freedom following ten years’ incarceration for the murder of her husband during a drunken rage, an event she cannot even remember. Director Dermot Boyd is canny enough to coax one of Walters’ more subtle performances, a world away from her broad comic turns. Otherwise, the direction is functional, but it’s Walters’ show.

REVOLVER (film, 2005, directed by Guy Ritchie)

Guy Ritchie was able to re-charm his disenchanted admirers to some degree with 2005’s complex gangster movie Revolver, which some saw as a partial return to form – although it was the director’s audacious reinvention of Sherlock Holmes as a comic action hero with Robert Downey that put him back on top. Revolver has some of the inventiveness of Ritchie’s breakthrough film – the one that gave birth to the increasingly threadbare mockney gangster trend – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

THE RISE AND FALL OF A WHITE-COLLAR HOOLIGAN (film, 2012, directed by Paul Tanter)

When out-of-work soccer thug Mike Jacobs discovers an old friend during a violent pre-game bust-up, he finds a new solution to his impecuniousness – credit card fraud. But very shortly the good life turns very sour indeed. Standard stuff, efficiently made, but treading familiar water.

RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER (film, 2007, directed by Julian Gilbey)

Julian Gilbey’s uncompromising 2007 film locates its criminality in the dark tale of young soccer thugs struggling for supremacy in a violent world, which is as hierarchical as the outwardly respectable business world that it sometimes grotesquely reflects. Based on the real-life tale of Carlton Leach (played by Ricci Harnett), this shows us a soccer hooligan who becomes a much-feared gang leader working for an international drug dealer. The film’s truly stygian picture of organised crime in the UK links the brainless violence of soccer thugs with the more directed mayhem of the professional criminal, but suggests that the mindset of the former is a prerequisite for success in the world of the latter. The film frequently reflects the energy and grim fascination of Martin Scorsese’s US-set Goodfellas.

RIVER (TV, 2014–15)

One presumes that the thinking here is to import Scandinavian actor Stellan Skarsgård to grant a fashionable Nordic gloss to this British cop series, and the whole thing is shot in an echt-Scandinavian style. It’s something like a mirror image of the misfiring Lilyhammer (which inserted an American actor into a Norwegian setting), but the ‘fish out of water’ scenario (though not pointed up – Skarsgård’s nationality is not underlined) proves to have limited mileage.

SCOTT AND BAILEY (TV, 2011–)

This derivative TV series may be heavily indebted to the American show Cagney and Lacey with its two contrasting female cops (one more conventional and nurturing, the other a self-destructive maverick), but Sally Wainwright manages to ring the changes very satisfactorily. In this, she is greatly aided by the casting of Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp, who find a persuasive dynamic for the duo. Familiar stuff, yes, but with a genuine sense of reality.

SEXY BEAST (film, 2000, directed by Jonathan Glazer)

By the time he made Sexy Beast, the East London actor Ray Winstone had become something of a British national treasure. Making his mark as a younger man in such pieces as the borstal-set Scum (Alan Clarke, 1979), Winstone’s career as a hard man was largely mapped out for him, and his bruised, abrasive cockney charm has tended to be the actor’s stock in trade since his early days. However, by the time of Sexy Beast, an interesting transmogrification has occurred and Winstone’s performance as top safe cracker Gal Dove functions on several levels: its own straightforward naturalistic level, as a parody of itself, and also as a wry and knowing commentary on what audiences have come to expect from such characters. Dove, after a successful London criminal career, has decided to retire and has moved with his wife to an exquisite villa in Spain. This idyllic hiatus is short-lived, after another criminal appears to throw Dove’s life into disarray. This criminal is a psychopath – the monstrous, diminutive Don Logan, a violent criminal who is unable to complete a sentence without the most colourful of epithets. His job is to persuade the retired Dove to take part in a bank robbery back in London and he is utterly determined not to take no for an answer. There is absolutely nothing that the reluctant Dove can do to dissuade his snarling criminal colleague. If Winstone’s casting as the suntan-oiled and slightly laid-back Dove plays on audience expectations of earlier performances, a similar piece of double-think is evident in the casting of the psychopathic Logan, played by a terrifying Ben Kingsley.

SHAME THE DEVIL (film, 2013, directed by Paul Tanter)

In Tanter’s 2013 film, a London cop on the trail of a killer finds that the murderer’s ‘truth or die’ techniques mean that a trip to New York is essential if he is to corner his quarry. Unfortunately, any promise that the scenario might hold is quickly squandered in a film that never really catches fire.

SHERLOCK (TV, 2010–)

Sherlock belongs in this book’s consideration of contemporary crime as a modern-day riff on the Great Detective. Anticipation for the third series of this latest contemporary iteration of Sherlock Holmes was at fever pitch – we knew that the detective had not died when he propelled himself from the roof of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the previous series, but whose was the body that hit the ground? This and a thousand other questions have occupied a whole new generation of Holmesians, many of whom have not read a word of Conan Doyle but love this post-modern incarnation. Old and new 221b Baker Street enthusiasts alike were pleased by the innovations in the third series, which maintains the trajectory of its much-watched predecessors, courtesy of writers and producers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss – although a certain over-stressed self-referentiality had crept in. The impeccable double act of the theatrical, patrician Holmes of Benedict Cumberbatch and the low-key, likeable Watson of Martin Freeman is perfect casting, and there are the clever references to the original Holmes canon, often using wordplay on Conan Doyle’s original titles (for example, ‘The Empty Hearse’ and ‘His Last Vow’).

SHETLAND (TV, 2013–)

With appropriate casting – a dour Douglas Henshall – this series focuses on DI Jimmy Perez and his team winkling out criminality in a cloistered island populace, and is built around the novels by the award-winning Ann Cleeves (also responsible for Vera). The unforgiving environment and often-hostile, tight-knit community are counterpointed by the poetry of the landscape, making Shetland strikingly different from its TV stablemates.

SHIFTY (film, 2008, directed by Eran Creevy)

The eponymous ‘Shifty’ in Eran Creevy’s film deals cocaine in London, and finds both his personal and business life torpedoed when his best friend returns home. With desperate addicts on his tail, and his alienated family about to close the door on him, his only chance is to out-manoeuvre a fellow drug dealer who has Shifty in his sights for destruction. The question the film doesn’t quite answer is this: should we be concerned with this casual destroyer of lives and his murky future? Moral issues aside, there are some sharp touches here, but Shifty (with Riz Ahmed in the title role) is generally journeyman fare.

SIGHTSEERS (film, 2012, directed by Ben Wheatley)

By the time of his third film, Sightseers, each new work by Ben Wheatley had started to generate considerable interest – not least because the eccentric Englishness of his films is set against their extreme violence. This use of violence had been graphically displayed in his second feature, Kill List (2011), where one victim has his brains beaten out in a scene that is difficult to watch; its unemphatic presentation of hammer blows, exposed brain tissue and bloody scalp is as disturbing as a similar bludgeoning in the Gaspar Noé film Irreversible.

Sightseers, however, dispenses with the hitmen of Kill List and Wheatley’s debut Down Terrace (2009); what it retains is the quirky, Anglocentric approach to language and performance, for which the names of fellow British directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach are routinely invoked. The demented, ‘ordinary’ couple in Sightseers – played by Alice Lowe and Steve Oram (who also co-wrote the screenplay) – may take part in copious bloodletting and violent murder on their eventful caravan trip, but on their initial appearance in the film they closely resemble the desperately unromantic and banal duo played by Alison Steadman and Roger Sloman in Mike Leigh’s Nuts in May (1976). While the psychopathic nature of Wheatley’s protagonists is something new, the other elements – an English couple glumly determined to have a good time on their ill-fated holiday even as all occasions inform against them – are familiar to us all. In fact, the film is more about a certain, sometimes bovine, English sangfroid in the face of petty disaster as much as it is about the latent capacities for monstrous behaviour in even the most ordinary of English people. The crushing of skulls with walking sticks and rocks, or even using moving vehicles, is given a resolutely black comic treatment, some considerable distance from the comedy of embarrassment of the early scenes. And the surrealism of the writing echoes Wheatley’s earlier work with such British television comedians as Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who similarly take a wildly off-kilter (though not quite so gruesome) approach to their material. Wheatley is also interested in the contrast between the grotesque happenings of the film and the beauty of the Lake District settings in which they take place. Certainly, after watching Sightseers, such comforting British institutions as tram museums and rickety caravans will never seem the same again.

THE SINS (TV, 2000)

The late actor Pete Postlethwaite – with his distinctively misshapen features – was a considerable asset to virtually anything he appeared in, whether film or television (not to mention his stage Lear in Liverpool). His performance as the bank robber Len Green in The Sins is typically imposing in this consistent and well-written series that is always watchable and has many virtues, including its use of the seven deadly sins as a theme throughout. Although this miniseries enjoyed some attention, it never achieved the audience figures it deserved. Postlethwaite is admirably supported by another reliable actor, Geraldine James, as his long-suffering spouse.

SNATCH (film, 2000, directed by Guy Ritchie)

After the success of Guy Ritchie’s first feature film, Lock, Stock, etc., money was thrown at its successor, Snatch, but this time Ritchie was able to draw upon the services of such major foreign stars as Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro – although the director encouraged both actors to disguise their physical appearance and their accents, something they were happy to do. The film had a decidedly mixed reception, although Pitt’s completely impenetrable Irish traveller’s accent has its aficionados – for all the wrong reasons.

In Snatch, crooked boxing promoters, threatening bookies, scowling gangsters and maladroit cheeky cock-er-nee thieves are on the trail of a stolen object: the McGuffin here is a stolen diamond, worth millions. The film once again sports a strongly cast and varied dramatis personae, with (for the second time) Jason Statham alongside the heavy-hitting imported names. Once again, the universe we are shown is that of organised – sometimes barely organised – crime, and the complex and confusing narrative also stirs into the brew a bounty hunter and an arms dealer with a past in the KGB.

The original response to Snatch was one more of mystification than disappointment, particularly as it showcases one of Brad Pitt’s periodic attempts to distance himself from the pretty boy stardom that he has come to dislike – hence his brutal character’s incomprehensible Oirish accent. However, subsequent viewings of the film have somewhat modified those initial responses, and it has now acquired something of a cult status. Certainly, Ritchie’s kinetic directing style is fully in evidence again, as is the Quentin Tarantino-style potpourri approach to the film’s music. If the wittily written screenplay by the director (recycling familiar elements) and labyrinthine narrative do not match the sheer exuberance of Ritchie’s debut film – where both the eccentric character names (such as ‘Brick Top’) and lazy mythologising of the salt-of-the-earth cockney ethos already looked shop-worn – time is proving kinder to it than subsequent work by Ritchie or those he has inspired.

STATE OF PLAY (TV, 2003)

The 2003 series that inspired a subsequent, less accomplished movie.

STONEMOUTH (TV, 2015)

In my convivial conversations with the late Scottish writer Iain Banks, I would ask how he kept mentally separate his science fiction work from his other writing. ‘It’s easy,’ he replied. ‘I assume a different identity whatever I’m writing.’ In 2012, the writer published his twenty-sixth novel, and three years later Stonemouth enjoyed a two-part adaptation by the BBC. Stewart Gilmour (played by Christian Cooke) is a young man who returns to the town for the funeral of a childhood friend. In fact, he was forced out of Stonemouth by an influential local criminal, the father of his friend. The crime boss is played in typically threatening fashion by Peter Mullan, a specialist in such parts (he played a similar role in the New Zealand-set Top of the Lake). However, despite its credentials, this is a gentler, more romantic piece than one might think, with flashbacks to memories of a new love affair. It’s this factor, along with a slightly overwrought voiceover narration – not to mention its unsuitably picturesque qualities – that draws the sting from Banks’s original material.

THE SWEENEY (film, 2012, directed by Nick Love)

The remake of the much-loved, oft-parodied John Thaw 1970s series about tough London cops: Thaw’s famous catchphrase as the humourless Regan – though not often used – was: ‘You’re nicked, my son!’ Good will was extended to the remake before it was seen, with a generally held view that Ray Winstone might be a solid substitute for Thaw – but a cloud of opprobrium descended quickly when the film saw the light of day, as it managed to torpedo virtually all the elements that made the original show successful, reducing it to yet another faceless, brutal cop saga.

TAGGART (TV, 1983–2010)

Not many TV shows can survive the death of their principal actor (and his character), but that is precisely what happened with this hard-edged Scottish police procedural when Mark McManus died. However, the fact that his colleagues had been solidly built up as interesting figures in their own right ensured that the series continued – and, what’s more, it continued to enjoy healthy viewing figures.

THORNE (TV, 2010)

In 2009, Sky TV took up the option on the Mark Billingham Tom Thorne novels, and a considerable amount of money was spent on the first three episodes, which were also afforded top-class directing and writing talent. But the most fruitful decision concerning the adaptations was the choice of the actor David Morrissey (see The Driver) to play the protagonist. The fact that Morrissey was a touch too young for the role was more than compensated for by the intensity of his performance – hardly surprising given that the actor is one of the most respected and versatile in the UK, and can move from Dickens to contemporary parts such as this with dexterity. The first Thorne novel to be adapted – as three episodes – was Sleepyhead. It was initially shown cut together as one complete film at an event put together by the British Film Institute at the National Film Theatre in London; given that the filmmaking ethos of Sleepyhead (directed by Stephen Hopkins) – not to mention its expensive production values – was on a cinematic level rather than a more modest television scale, the cinema was perhaps a more natural home for this adaptation. The producers showed an intelligent regard for the source material, and a great deal of what Billingham had originally created managed to find its way on to the screen – not least Thorne’s tricky, non-consensual nature, which is perfectly caught in Morrissey’s edgy performance. Many of the minor characters are also given interesting lives; again, the casting here is a considerable asset, with such reliable character actors as Eddie Marsan providing solid backup for Morrissey’s performance. If not quite finding a film equivalent for the idiosyncratic quality of Billingham’s original – the films are often efficiently generic rather than innovative – the director Stephen Hopkins demonstrates a particular skill for the urban setting, managing to make London look simultaneously threatening, rundown and beautiful. In fact, milieu is one of the determining factors in these adaptations, with the detective’s rather splendid (if unlikely) flat and its canal-side setting contrasting with the other equally well chosen (if less telegenic) locations.

The second film in the series, an adaptation of Scaredy Cat (directed by Benjamin Ross), takes liberties with the original material but manages to balance the caustic inter-office politics involving Thorne and his ex-partner Tughan (played again by Eddie Marsan) with its pursuit-of-serial-killer plot. However, the series did not receive the expected attention – or viewing figures – possibly due to the sheer amount of similar product flooding the market.

THE TRIALS OF JIMMY ROSE (TV, 2015)

Does Ray Winstone – an excellent actor – ever tire of delivering his standard cockney criminal persona and feel an urge to tackle something that would extend him? That familiar characterisation is on display again in The Trials of Jimmy Rose, but there’s no denying that he’s always utterly watchable – and nobody does it better. In Alan Whiting’s three-part drama, the unlucky Jimmy Rose is out of prison, having served 12 years for armed robbery – and, unsurprisingly, he finds his wife Jackie (an underwritten Amanda Redman) singularly unenthusiastic about the idea of his reintroducing himself into her life. Another family member, Ellie, has her own problems (again perhaps unsurprisingly, given her father) and has disappeared after being seen in a drug dealer’s squat in Lewisham. What follows is relatively standard stuff – a justified criminal on the trail of criminals much worse than him and struggling to come to terms with the shifting modern world and its confusing technology – but Winstone’s performance allows viewers to forget the clichés.

THE TUNNEL (TV, 2013–)

Honestly now – has there ever been an English-language remake of a foreign crime show that has matched the original, let alone surpassed it? The US version of Søren Sveistrup’s Danish The Killing, say? While the American remake of that show was creditable, it didn’t begin to match the memorable original. This is also the case with The Tunnel, an efficient enough Anglo-French remake of the Danish/Swedish cult success The Bridge, which attempts to transplant the culture-shock clashes of the original with ill-matched French and English coppers (Clémence Poésy and Stephen Dillane). Again, perfectly serviceable, but signally lacking the considerable distinction of the original.

24 HOURS IN LONDON (film, 2000, directed by Alexander Finbow)

In Alexander Finbow’s harsh thriller, a London criminal sets about the task of permanently removing all his rivals – along with any witnesses unfortunate enough to be around at the time of the killings. Gary Olsen is the star, and is capable enough, but the film overall is ineffective on most levels.

VERA (TV, 2011–)

Ann Cleeves’ memorably idiosyncratic protagonist, DCI Vera Stanhope – caustic, badly dressed and physically sloppy – is utterly single-minded about her work, and is a more talented detective than any of her peers. Her colleague is DS Joe Ashworth, who she respects – and who is one of the few people who know how to deal with her. The masterstroke in this series is the casting of the elegant Brenda Blethyn, who indelibly incarnates Cleeves’ shabby, massively intuitive character.

THE VICE (TV, 1999–2003)

The Vice was a series of corrosive crime dramas, now remembered for a pre-Rebus Ken Stott as uncompromising copper DI Chappel. All the usual ingredients make an appearance: prostitution, pornography and murder are all part of the daily workload for the cynical vice team as they investigate the capital’s grimmer secrets and encounter a veritable metropolitan Sodom and Gomorrah. The Vice customarily portrayed London as a city of striking social contrasts, moving swiftly from the back streets of King’s Cross to the bars of Park Lane hotels. Ken Stott burnishes his credentials as a commanding actor, and Anna Chancellor shores up the authoritative acting.

WAKING THE DEAD (TV, 2000–11)

Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (Trevor Eve) heads up a team of police detectives and scientists, the Cold Case Squad, tasked with investigating unsolved murder cases and utilising modern methods and new technologies not in use at the time of the original investigations. With the saturnine Eve attracting a solid fan base, the series proved to be a lucrative export, with American viewers avidly consuming the series. In fact, Waking the Dead rarely strays from the well-worn parameters of such shows, but does its job (like its detectives) with efficiency.

WE STILL KILL THE OLD WAY (film, 2014, directed by Sacha Bennett)

In present-day East London, the E2 gang has the local population living in fear, particularly the older residents, who look back fondly to an earlier era of gangsters (including the unpleasant duo Ritchie and Charlie Archer – it’s not hard to see which criminal brothers they are based on) who practised their own ruthless code of honour. Lizzie, memorably played by Lysette Anthony, is forced to confront the new reality when murder and rape intrude on her life. The film is not immune from the occasional hints of rose-tinted Krays nostalgia (notably in the aforementioned brothers, played by Ian Ogilvy and Steven Berkoff), and anyone familiar with similar films (such as Legend) will know exactly what to expect – surprises are few. But the cast of older actors introduces an unusual note and helps make Sacha Bennett’s film successful.

THE WEE MAN (film, 2013, directed by Ray Burdis)

Something of a mythologising piece based on the life of Paul Ferris, played here by Martin Compston. He’s on the wrong side of the law, but basically (we are told) a good guy and a family man – think Phil Collins in Buster, which is similarly indulgent towards its criminal hero – who deals with far more corrupt figures while a useless, bent police force refuses to intervene. Very familiar fare, and deeply unconvincing in the celebration of its antihero.

WELCOME TO THE PUNCH (film, 2013, directed by Eran Creevy)

Eran Creevy’s film has ex-criminal Jacob Sternwood (played by Mark Strong) obliged to return to London from his bolthole in Iceland when his son is involved in a bungled heist, thus gifting detective Max Lewinsky a final opportunity to nail the prey who has long eluded him. Strong and James McAvoy (as Lewinsky) do well enough here, but the director’s attempts to channel the techniques of Michael Mann are less successful, and viewer credulity is tested by the over-the-top final scenes.