‘No one cares what you have to think or say in that situation…’
Sexy Beast and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels cast a long shadow over the British gangster genre. Pretenders to the throne tend to feature the insidious violence of the former combined with the cheeky-chappie cockney stylings of the latter. Few come close to replicating either of those two behemoths. Love, Honour and Obey is cut from the same cloth as Ray Winstone’s previous work, and the films of Guy Ritchie, but rather than try to scale those heights, directors Dominic Anciano and Ray Burdis (who also stars) concentrate on making a movie that is a lot of fun instead…
Ambitious North London postman Jonny (Jonny Lee Miller) is brought into a criminal gang by his neighbour Jude (Jude Law). Head Honcho Ray (Ray Winstone) takes a shine to Jonny, but the newcomer to the gang soon finds himself in over his head. As well as the aforementioned, Love, Honour and Obey also features Denise Van Outen, Kathy Burke and Sadie Frost as a trio of gangster’s molls, Sean Pertwee as a rival mob boss and Rhys Ifans as a hapless right hand man. A starry cast.
Instead of trying to write a script that is fit for such a heady selection of A listers, Anciano and Burdis instead keep things light. The plot, such as it is, is a routine mixture of a rising star and feuding families. We’ve seen it all before. Crucially, it is in the execution that this movie shines. Nobody is taking it too seriously, the comedic moments are telegraphed but still funny, and the central flashback motif is tied together nicely at the end.
Love, Honour and Obey is a film that was pretty much instantly forgotten upon release, but in many ways it has aged better than many of the slew of Guy Ritchie imitations that came out in that era. And that’s mainly because it’s a lot of fun. There is a lesson in there somewhere.