IMDB is sadly becoming known for fake ratings. This film is one big bag of gangster film cliches from one scene to the next. It lacks a compelling story (which is a shame considering it's based on real gangsters) and I could care less about the main characters. Don't waste your time with this. Stick to football hooligan or Guy Ritchie flicks if you want to see a halfway entertaining film about English gangsters.

You know that feeling when you come into a movie late and only see the last 2/3rds of it and you never really can figure out what is going on? Well, that's what this is like right for the start. And it never gets better. Just one screen jump after another without context, without explanation. It was like watching a collection of gangster bloopers on YouTube.

'Once Upon A Time In London (2019)' supposed to be this slick, slow-burning crime epic but it's actually little more than a series of scenes in which middle-age to straight-up old white men viciously beat one another for apparent sins committed just off screen. Indeed, most of the story seems to be delivered this way; we can infer what has happened by the details of the beating it results in. Of course, this is a less than ideal way to tell a tale. Frankly, the narrative is fairly hard to follow. It's also rather dull. Towards the end, it starts to get a little more interesting because there's an actual shifting dynamic in play between its two so-called protagonists. Even then, their relationship shifts from amicable to antagonistic incredibly quickly - in the space between a single scene, really. It isn't clear which one we're supposed to be rooting for and, honestly, neither are all that compelling as characters. The whole thing is built, unironically, on 'London gangster' stereotypes. Needless to say, it's all been done before and it's all been done better. To top it all off, the picture seems to posit that crime does indeed pay if you do it right, succumbing to the very 'honour among thieves' mentality it at one point attempts to decry. In the end, there are no lessons learned. It clearly admires successful scumbags and laments those who either lose touch, get sliced up in the street or leave the life and live to a respectable age with a relatively respectable family. Look, the movie isn't heinous. It's shot rather well and the actors do a decent job with the often hammy material they're given. It just doesn't inspire any real emotion. After a certain point, you aren't so much actively watching as waiting for it to be over. 3/10