We Still Kill the Old Way (2014)

We Still Kill the Old Way has a scrappy, old-school charge: it’s a British gangster film that remembers how to be entertaining, letting seasoned faces and lived-in performances sell every glare, joke, and threat. Director Sacha Bennett leans into the clash between the “proper” East End code and a colder modern street-gang ruthlessness, giving the movie a nostalgic charm even as it keeps the pace brisk and the tension sharp. Ian Ogilvy anchors it with a hard-earned gravitas, and the ensemble camaraderie makes the revenge engine feel personal rather than mechanical. Fair warning, this is not a genteel throwback—the violence is frequently brutal and the language is raw—so if you can stomach the ugliness, you’ll find a lively, confident genre ride with real bite.

We Still Kill the Old Way is clearly aiming for a cheeky, old-school East End revenge fantasy where the “proper” gangsters come out of retirement to teach a new generation a lesson. The problem is it often plays more cartoonish than hard-hitting, with clunky pacing, forced humor, and a contrived plot that doesn’t feel especially fresh or believable. Add in genuinely nasty material (including sexual violence and sadistic torture) and it can feel grim for the sake of it rather than insightful. If you’re in the mood for a pulpy, throwback vigilante thriller with a few familiar faces and don’t mind rough edges, you might get some mileage—but if you want social bite, nuanced characters, or grounded crime drama, this probably isn’t your night.