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Such a frustrating disappointment

Beautiful, moving film.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Billy "Shiner" Simpson (Michael Caine) is building up to his big boxing promoting night, the headline of which is his own son, Eddie "Golden Boy" Simpson (Matthew Marsden). But family troubles begin to weigh heavy, a police investigation closes in on him and a rival American promoter is breathing down his neck. It's going to get messy.Surprisingly for a Michael Caine British gangster movie, Shiner is a little under known. A shame because it's really rather good. Caine himself felt that by 2000 the cinema loving public had had enough of British films of this type, hence why it did poorly at the box office and quickly disappeared into the retail chain of things.It's basically a reworking of King Lear, in London and with Caine on super form. Billy Simpson is a grade "A" noir protagonist, the world he inhabits is ultimately too much for him, there's treachery and dishonesty – violence and disappointments, all around him, but still he ploughs on as if he will eventually become the king of the castle. Yet this is the noirville area of London, of grubby bars and grey landscapes, the hall playing host to Billy's big night is a place of stale cheese sandwiches and blocked toilets.On either side of Billy are his two henchman played by Frank Harper and Andy Serkis, two sides of the same coin they are, though they menace in different ways. Billy's two daughters played by Claire Rushbrook and Frances Barber, also two sides of the same coin, but conversely they have different love for their father. Martin Landau is the smooth American promoter with a dame on his arm and a grudge for Billy, and Gary Lewis and Kenneth Cranham fill out important roles as characters caught in Billy's soon to be maelstrom.Caine did say that he considers Shiner to be part of a trilogy that comprises Get Carter and Mona Lisa. Shiner isn't close to being as good as those two movies, especially the sublime Get Carter, but it holds its head up high in such company and fans of those movies should seek it out. 8/10

I remember taking my Dad to see this, almost ten years ago now. It only ran for two weeks, and we went two days shy of it's quick departure. As not really knowing anything at all about the movie, except for some info on the leaflet I took, before we made our way into the cinema, I got my money's worth. I love the way this movie unfolded. Caine, this fine actor, just superb here, plays Billy, nickname Shiner Simpson, indeed a really bad guy, who holds underground fights, one of most recent, which has put the loser into a vegetative state, only now he's met a much worse fate. The cops are soon knocking on Billy's door, and it's the worst timing. Billy void of any sympathy, stating the victim was "always in a vegetative state" has bigger things to worry about on this special day. It's the day of his son's fight, where everything's riding on him. The son seems to be the only human, Billy cares about. He treats people like ants, including the thugs, security, who work for him. He's also a manipulator, even with the law, which I liked. The two detectives, a male and female, are persuaded to hold off the Q and A, until after the fight, at Caine's request. Yes, they agree. This has Caine, jumping into the shower, euphoric and all. This deal's made on one condition, at the detective guy's request: Caine gets a signed autograph from his son's competition, Golden Boy. He's got balls, this guy. The female cop is less enthused, and not amused. And we see how vicious Caine can get, when one of his associates finds a whole batch of crap fighters, at Billy's expense, despite the fact the victim is, a small sixty plus guy, who after getting his arm broken in a discreet fashion, by Billy and his thugs, is then brushed by a passing car who hits him where it hurts most. One of his fighters lasts 29 seconds which was such a laugh, the loser decked. There are some funny bits, partly thanks to Andy Serkis's performance as one of Caine's thugs, where everything's a joke to him, that so much resembles me. Billy's day is about to get a whole lot worse. His son, who really didn't have a fighting son when racked up against this other bloke, decamps and is later shot. Here, the movie becomes a surprisingly good thriller, where Caine is pointing his finger left, right, centre, at a sea of suspects, where's he overtaken by rage and revenge. His warring adversary, Martin Landau, a representative of the other fighter, is one such suspect, who Caine hijacks, which eventuates in a small chain cat collision in a tunnel, Landau getting the upper hand on Caine. The two detectives monitoring Caine's moves, have lost him too, so they're not happy chappies, where now, their investigation takes a backseat to this tragedy. There's one thing Caine is great at, and that's playing the villain, as seen in Mona Lisa, even in On Deadly Ground. Here, he reprises that badness, where almost at the same time, he was doing The Quiet American that earned him another Oscar nomination. His bedside manner at the start, when going the wrong way down a one way street, and asking the oncoming motorist to ever so politely (sarcasm reference) move over was a great and comic start to this underrated movie, that becomes increasingly violent towards the end, specially in it's great shoot out climax, as bullets fly, after the killer and his motives catch us by complete surprise, as though we been led on a different track. This is a great vehicle for Caine, one of those fine actors, that's a dying breed, who'll hopefully be around for many more years.

First off, this movie leaves you in a limbo mood wise. You don't know what to feel. So much so that you don't feel bad for Caines character when his son gets murdered (which was actually mostly due to bad editing). The script was too bland. None of the situations matter as you watch them. The soundtrack, or lack there of (if there was it wasn't good enough to even remember) does not help it one bit. Only good surprise to this movie was Andy Serkis' performance. It was on par if not better than Caine's. The story would have probably gone better off if Serkis would have killed him. Because quite frankly you don't feel any kind of redemption in the climax. Just a feeling of lack of feeling, if ya feel me. Basically this movie massively lacks draw. Leaving the audience alienated throughout the entire thing.

The words starring Michael Caine is enough to strike the fear of God into any movie fan, considering some of the poor films he has made over the past 10 years.In Shiner however he returns to form in one of his best performances of his career.Since Lock Stock there has been many poor british gangster flicks but Shiner is up there with The Long Good Friday and Get Carter.Its so refreshing to see a grim, dark, gritty and powerful movie, especially with all the Hollywood schmaltz and big budget nonesense thats doing the rounds these days.If your favourite movies are Long Good Friday and Get Carter, I strongly urge you to see this film.