The 1947 adaptation of Graham Greene's benchmark for subsequent British crime fiction may show its age badly in terms of its prurience around the nastier elements of the story and its handling of the working class, the combination resulting in a great deal of unintentional comedy for the modern viewer, and this must be a major self-justification for Joffe's update. However, Richard Attenborough as the teenage gangster Pinkie was truly chilling, and as promising an actor Sam Riley is, this version of the character is merely cold and ambitious where a real sociopath was called for. The revision of era from the '30s to the early '60s also seems pointless, beyond wedging in what else we know of Brighton besides sticks of rock and the Pier, i.e. mods and rockers, which only serves to distract from the milieu of the gangsters.
As might be expected, Joffe's film is well cast and handsomely shot. It's just difficult to see any point to it besides bringing the story up to modern sensibilities, with nothing added and, if anything, something lost in the cursory treatment of Greene's novel's references to religion.
5/10
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