Bringing together the wits of old-school criminals with a new school crime, King of Crime delivers a new take on the very modern British gangster in this action-packed crime thriller. I got an opportunity to talk with the film’s director Matt Gambell to ask him a few questions including; what we can expect from the film, working with such a talented cast and his favourite moments during filming.
You have your new action thriller King of Crime coming out soon what can we expect from the film?
All sorts. One of the things that compelled me to the film that makes it so interesting is the approach toward telling a gangster crime movie, that at its core is more about family and relationships. You can expect a classic action-packed story with crime, gore and everything you want from the genre, it’s also at its core more emotional and more dramatic. There is a lot going on amongst all of the characters, so following along and being aware of what each character is going through is something I found really compelling about making the movie.
So, it looks a lot at the relationships of the characters?
Without giving too much away it’s a lot about betrayal which is classic for these kinds of movies, but it’s a unique twist. It’s much more about this idea of moving away from this classic criminal mafia-style crime, into more cybercrime and modern technology. It’s also a lot about old blood and new blood. You can see on the poster we’ve separated the top and bottom with the old school criminals and new school crime, which is the tagline that we have with the younger generation on the bottom. It is dealing with the tensions between the two dynamics, very much like what everyone goes through day by day.
You bring together a great cast which includes Mark Wingett, Claire King, Rachel Bright and Nicholas Brendon to name a few. When you read the script did you have any of these actors in mind for the characters?
I was told by the producers that Mark and Claire were involved from the very beginning, which was great and a good way to really get an idea what the film was going to be like. We had a strong idea for Jess which was Rachel’s character. We went through lots of really strong auditions and there were lots of interesting takes on the character, but I think we all had in mind an idea of how we wanted that character played. It was one of those moments where Rachel came in and she just nailed it. Within seconds of her starting the audition we all just looked at each other and we were like, this is what we expect Jess to be, so credit to Rachel. Conveniently Jonno Davies as well playing one of the twins, they auditioned with the same time space as one another and were both so good at their roles. They were the last auditions that we had held, so we had seen a series of these characters and you know when you haven’t quite got what you want. But they were like magic, they both walked in and did their audition and we were like, that’s what we want! It was phenomenal really.
Were there any changes you made to the script during the filming?
Yes! The third act of the film changed quite significantly mid-filming due to certain limitations, I actually think it’s a much stronger third act to what we originally had but I don’t want to give too much away. There were various rewrites as we went through rehearsals and realised that certain bits wouldn’t work, and as with the nature of productions, certain timings would have to change based on how things are developed or how the characters are playing. We did some reshoots and added extra scenes to explain things a bit better. We shot the principal photography, we got the first chunk of filming, got a rough edit from that and then realised that there were certain things that we needed to redo or explain things a bit more. That’s the difference between reading things on paper and not being engaged in it and when its on screen and been cut together, so we just wanted to put a bit more effort into certain parts of the film.
We knew we wanted to go abroad for a few scenes, so we ended up in Spain to shoot part of the third act, and again that was a part we tweaked as we developed the film. To her credit having Linda (Dunscombe) on board as producer and writer, she was really willing to let me interject some of my directorial sides into it and say, “I think it’s better from a story side of it if we can change this to make it slightly more interesting” or tone down some of the visual because we can be more subtle with a couple of things. I think we had a good relationship with that and I am pleased how it developed that way.
What were some of your favourite moments during filming?
I previously made a film called What goes up (2014) which was self-produced by me and my friends when I was at university. One of the reasons I was brought on to do King of Crime was to make it feel like it was a bigger budget than it was, to really upsell the movie. One of the things that I was really excited about from the beginning with the budget that we had was to get some really cinematic moments in the film.
We had one day on set, we called it crane day and everybody on the set was able to slack for most of the day because there were only four core members. Me my cinematographer and the crane operators, that was my crew for the day. The opening shot of the film is this tracking crane shot over the King’s manor and adds so much visual quality to the whole movie. One of the things I wanted to do was book end the movie and I am really pleased how that came across. During shooting you never 100% get what you want, but I knew that there were certain things that I wanted to fight for and the bookend opening and closing of the movie I am really proud of.
There is also a brilliant scene that takes place occurs in a warehouse which shot the second day into production and still it stands out as one of the visually striking scenes in the film. The location was so good and Steve who owns the warehouse, who is also in the film as Steve. I knew I wanted a spotlight effect on the actors because there is this interrogation scene which happens in the warehouse and I wanted an atmospheric shot. We were trying to figure out how we get this light up here and Steve was like, “I will just get the forklift” We will stick it on the bottom of the forklift and raise it just out of frame. What I really love about that is you can see the forklift in the shot, but what you don’t realise is that there’s a light hanging from the top of it, so it is just the edge of the forklift frame. It was the beautiful synergy of different moments coming together to work really well and we had a smoke machine, so it looked so atmospheric and a really nice opening push into that scene. That is one of my favourite moments in the film.
I don’t want to give too much away, but there is some stuff in the end third act of the movie which I am really happy with as well. For me what was really important was the performances, but also getting that visual flair that I would consider my style or traditional Hollywood style that I love to do. Both Tom (Anderson) my cinematographer and I had the freedom to do that and I am really grateful for that.
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
