Charlie no-mates

Nothing can compete with the boredom of Charlie,writer-director Malcolm Needs's apologia for small-time South London hood Charlie Richardson (Luke Goss, improbably) set around his 1966 trial.

Did Richardson torture his associates? Needs says no, yet he films the recounted torture scenes with gruesome care, apparently not realising that this will make audiences believe they are true.

Why should we care that Charlie went to prison? He was clearly a nasty piece of work and all Needs ends up doing, with his loud protestations about stitched-up trials, is show that in this case the end (a criminal put away) probably justified the means - surely a philosophy with which Charlie would have some sympathy.

Charlie
Cert: cert18