Trailer—Villain

You have to live Burton camping it up as a psychotic mum loving gangster. It's all a bit small budget but if you stumble upon it you will enjoy it. It's quite violent in places as Burton is proper psych!!

Richard Burton as a mother-obsessed gay gangster modeled on Ronnie Kray. It wasn't the worst part he ever had and to be fair he does what he can with it but as British gangster pictures go, "Villain" has very little to recommend it. The director was Michael Tuchner who doesn't appear to have much interest in the material, though he does handle the film's heist scene with more brio than it or the film probably deserves. The script was by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais who were better suited to comedy, (there aren't many laughs in this one). On the plus side, Burton was always worth watching, even when he was bad, while Ian McShane is fine as the pretty boy Burton likes to have rough sex with, discreetly off-screen, and Donald Sinden is excellent in much too small a part as a corrupt Member of Parliament. Watchable then, but certainly not memorable.

a classic Brit film of the early seventies,Villain remains a superbly made and well crafted example of pure villainy and layered characters making the best of the likes of Burton,McShane,Davenport and Acland. It opens with a gritty murder of some shady character who has crossed Richard Burton,who plays Vic Dakin,the central crook, who embarks on a wages snatch which goes horribly wrong,and ends with Dakins comeuppance at the hands of the law. With Jaguars and Zodiacs, seedy nightclubs and a dash of homosexuality,Villain makes at times uneasy watching and yet with Burton it remains compulsive. It has echoes of James Cagney and his 'Ma' in White Heat,as Vic Dakin and his Mother exercise a ring of steel midst crooks and cops. Watch it, enjoy it and savour the whole meal of man and mob.It is on video but still scarce to find, DVD is long overdue.

British gangster films have always been with us, but in the case of this very rare and hardly ever shown on TV classic, VILLAIN was to be the real start of many vicious gangster films to follow. For some insane reason Richard Burton never got any real film awards for any films he did. His films were very varied indeed. And it probably came as a shock to many when he stepped into the role of vicious London crime boss Vic Dakin. It's a performance with such frightening menace, that you wonder why this film is not shown more on television. It is also not on DVD and videos of the movie are hard to find, or of a very high price sold by collectors who wish to make a profit on this very rare gem. People go on and on about Get Carter, another great film, and I agree on it also being a classic, but for me Villain is just as good. If you can watch this film and can get hold of a copy, I urge you to do so. You won't be disappointed.

Richard Burton plays a sadistic, notorious, homosexual, British crime boss in Michael Tuchner directorial debut "Villain" with Ian McShane, Nigel Davenport, Jose Ackland, and Donald Sinden. Loosely based on the life of Ronnie Kray, this grim, sometimes violent, but often dreary thriller is ostensibly based on James Barlow's novel "The Burden of Proof." The highlight of this atmospheric gangster saga is a robbery bid in broad daylight as Vic Dakin (Richard Burton) and his cronies grab sixty to seventy thousand pounds from an armored car. Dakin is a devoted son to his elderly mother (Cathleen Nesbitt) and lavishes attention on her when he isn't beating up his adversaries. Inspector Bob Matthews (Nigel Davenport of "Play Dirty") struggles to find enough evidence to arrest this elusive killer. Altogether unsavory but moments of violence that capture the era, "Villain" qualifies as a letdown and is nowhere as entertaining as Michael Caine's "Get Carter."

Adaptation of James Barlow's novel "The Burden of Proof" is a violent portrait of a gangland boss on London's East End that was allegedly based upon real-life crime czar Ronnie Kray. Razor-wielding Richard Burton has the lead, plotting a payroll robbery and blackmailing sexually indiscriminate Members of Parliament, but Burton's monotone Cockney accent, his grim, ashen face and stolid body language show the actor was either uncertain how to approach the part or was distinctly uncomfortable in the role. Director Michael Tuchner's flaccid pacing is another liability, as is the picture's general lack of wit, its poor sound recording (was the entire movie looped in post-production?) and its coyness about the Burton character's homosexuality. *1/2 from ****

Perhaps a poor relation to "Get Carter," (they were made around the same time as each other), this is nonetheless an underrated, interesting gangster film. Richard Burton is strangely cast as the violent East End villain, Vic Dakin. You can see that his character is obviously based on Ronnie Kray, and Burton has difficulty pulling off a cockney accent. He is often seen fumbling through his lines. With lots of London location filming and cockney banter, Americans will love this film. There is even a brilliant car chase during the violent wages snatch. Donald Sinden is brilliant as the sleazy, blackmailed MP who frequents high society sex parties. In this respect, the film is very satirical, the characters are stereotypical of an era where scandal amongst the English establishment and local "businessmen" was (and still is) rife.