Villain
IT’S HARD not to think of what might have been when you think of Richard Burton. He was an unfeasibly talented actor with a wild Celtic intensity who frittered away his natural gifts through a fondness for the bottle that ensured he never made as many truly great films as he should have.
When he did shine though, and found a film worthy of his talents and enough self-discipline to actually deliver the goods, there were few actors that could touch him for sheer power and presence.
Watching Villain, the grim and gritty gangster film he made for first-time director Michael Tuchner in 1971, is a reminder of how truly great he could be when all the stars aligned and the bottle was locked away for a while.
As London mobster Vic Dakin, a wound up, repressed ball of monstrous and moody nastiness, he is simply unforgettable.
Based on James Barlow’s pulp novel The Burden Of Proof, Villain follows Dakin and his Saville Row-suited-and-booted henchmen as they try to pull off the big one, an audacious armed robbery of a factory payroll.
Dakin, in a clear nod to the twisted psychology of the Krays, dotes on his elderly mother and splits his time between tending to her by her bedside and cutting up rival wide boys and career criminals who cross his path on a seemingly an hourly basis.
In a brave move for a mainstream 1971 movie, old Vic also maintains a full-blown homosexual affair with one of his handsome young underlings, Wolfe (played by future Lovejoy Ian McShane). Conflicted and angry at everything, Vic rages into the night as the big job approaches and the law start closing in.
Burton is electric as the intense gangland boss and there’s something in those wild eyes and weather-beaten face that suggests he knows his time is almost up. Like a ticking time bomb of testosterone, it’s impossible to take your eyes of him.
While the Welsh wonder is in a league apart, the whole film rocks. The script is by TV writing duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, rightly revered for small-screen beauties like Porridge and The Likely Lads, and it bubbles with believable cockney crime parlance and the seedy reality of low lives living high.
There’s terrific support from the great TP McKenna, playing rival muscle to Vic’s mob, and Nigel Davenport as the law man biding his time and waiting for his opportunity to catch the biggest fish in this slimy pool.
Easily the match for the much better known Michael Caine gangster epic Get Carter, also released in 1971, Villain stands proud today as a unique snapshot of Britain's crime land in all its nasty, small-minded glory. Shot with a kind of grey glamour that suggests an X-rated Sweeney, it’s bleak but brilliant in its own tasteless little way.
Burton’s performance is the icing on that beautifully made if slightly sickening cake. Edgy, wildly unpredictable and tragically believable he’s rarely, if ever, been better.
