North V South

The low-budget British gangster genre has been responsible for so many crimes against cinema, it’s a wonder the UN haven’t got involved. Mercifully, ‘North v South’ is a relatively bearable addition, its clichéd plot and drab direction compensated for by a strong cast and a nice line in sweary dialogue.

In a faceless motorway hotel, the heads of two gangs are meeting to discuss a truce: the northern bosses, led by a glowering Bernard Hill, are looking to make peace with their cockney counterparts, headed (inevitably) by Steven Berkoff and Keith Allen. Little do they know, but Hill’s junior bagman (Gary Cargill) is conducting a clandestine affair with Berkoff’s prissy daughter (Charlotte Hope), a tryst which threatens to blow the whole deal. There’s nothing here we’ve not seen before, and it all feels a little cheap. But if ‘oi, slag!’ mobster movies are your bag, you could do worse.