Crappy film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

A bad act off between Richard Burton Joss Ackand and the Hammeister himself Donald Sinden -some of the dialogue is a treat and Dick Clement /Ian Le Frenais script is almost their most unintentional best comedy!-one redeeming feature is the well staged heist scene but otherwise it's a miscast extraordinare -by the way Joss Ackland clearly hadn't learned his lesson not to play a villain when returning as one in an episode of The Sweeney 7 years later

The Leonard Maltin movie guide described this movie as being "nasty" and "stomach-churning". Actually, by today's standards, the level of violence on display here you could probably easily get away with on prime time network television. Anyway, the tame by today's standards violence wasn't an issue with me. The main problem is with the script. The movie starts off fairly well, but quickly becomes very slow and talky, and the dialogue isn't particularly colorful or interesting to grab the viewer. (This problem can be found with a lot of other British movies this age or older.) As for Richard Burton, while his performance here is not one of his worst, it's also not one of his better ones. One problem for him might have been the fact that his character's appearances are somewhat less in number than you might think. This is not an awful movie, but for the most part it's kind of bland and forgettable. If you want to see an early 1970s British crime drama, I would suggest you watch the 1971 Michael Caine movie "Get Carter" instead.

A towering monument to Eastend gangster-hood, VILLAIN loosely incorporates the persona, history and traits of the Kray twin's mythology into one thunderingly mad and menacing character - Vic Dakin (Richard Burton).Sharply scripted by British sitcom maestros Clement and La Frenais (The Likely Lads, Porridge) this is a fabulously nasty and paroxysmally brutal foray into the London underworld. A place where straight razors, shotguns, revolvers and blunt instruments are the tools of the trade and egocentric kingpins of crime play out cut-price Machiavellian games for a piece of turf.Burton's character - a sadistic homosexual psychopath with a mother-fixation - sounds like a blatant cliché. Luckily, his performance keeps things on the right side of the thin line between believably escalating paranoid psychosis and unrestrained pantomime ham. It's a close call, but Liz Taylor's more talented other half pulls it off - just. He pitches things somewhere between Cagney's Cody Jarrett and the real-life Ronnie Kray and is a truly magnetic act to watch. His final deranged but chilling rant is worth the price of admission alone. It will linger with you.At the time of release, there was much controversy over the violence and the perverse sexual content but nowadays that won't strike as all that shocking, whereas the casual and unpleasant misogyny probably will affront the delicate PC sensibilities of some sensitive souls.VILLAIN stacks up well against those other iconic early seventies British crime classics GET CARTER and SITTING TARGET and is greatly enhanced by Burton burning up the screen with barely restrained ferocity and venom. Compulsive viewing, well worth looking at.

Richard Burton inhabits the character of Vic Dakin very well in this competent but slightly one- dimensional gangster film. Swinging from psycho one minute to loving son the next, there's no doubt that Burton would have enjoyed the variety of the role. I love the way he literally snarls some of his lines out. Throw in a politician with a roving eye (played very well indeed by Donald Sinden) and a gay wide boy whom Dakin dotes on (Ian McShane), and that's pretty much the premise of the storyline. For me, the only issue is that there's not an awful lot to it. Yes - Burton is outstanding, even though he doesn't quite nail the cockney accent, with his bright blue eyes flashing menacingly, and he is ably supported by a great cast. It's very much in the same vein as the likes of 'Get Carter' but doesn't move as fast, which probably doesn't help. Am I glad I took the time out on a Saturday afternoon to watch this? You betcha!