A Gangster’s Life review – funny in parts, but not always deliberately

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Despite some interesting visuals, not even Tony Cook and Jonny Weldon can lift this poorly produced tale of a pair of dodgy lads hiding in Greece from a gangster Here is an odd film about a couple of dodgy lads who get on the wrong side of a bona fide gangster and have to hide out in Greece. It’s not thoughtless per se; rather, it lacks the resources to bring its vision successfully to screen. Its quirks are sometimes appealing and sometimes amateurish and, while a mixture of influences swirl about, from Bond to Kingsman to Guy Ritchie and even Mission: Impossible, the film-makers don’t have the necessary budget, meaning that it feels at times like a TikTok parody of more expensive films. It is a shame, because there are some interesting visual ideas that go beyond route one filming. Example: a goon beating a man tied to a chair on a crispy manicured lawn is filmed in a lovely wide shot, with a guy in the far distance calmly clipping the hedge. But it’s the post-production that is th...
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‘It has become a sort of silver bullet’: why are rap lyrics being put on trial?

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In compelling documentary As We Speak, a controversial legal practice that uses rap lyrics to secure convictions is explored

In September 2001, McKinley Phipps Jr, also known as the rapper Mac, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for manslaughter. It had been a year and a half since gunfire erupted outside a club where he was slated to perform in Slidell, Louisiana, resulting in the death of 19-year-old Barron Victor Jr. Phipps, then 22, maintained his innocence, and the case against him was weak – there was no gun linking him to the crime, several witnesses recanted their testimony and another person confessed to pulling the trigger. And yet, prosecutors had their trump card: Mac, a former New Orleans rap prodigy who began releasing music at the age of 13, had rapped about murder.

“Murder, murder, kill, kill”, Phipps recites in As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial, a new documentary on the criminalization of rap lyrics. Prosecutors spliced that line with one from a different song – “Pull the trigger, put a bullet in your head” – to create the portrait of a killer; Mac’s art was the evidence that DNA, solid confessions, or a missing weapon couldn’t provide. An all-white jury bought it. Phipps served over 21 years in prison before being granted clemency in 2021.

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