Mockney Menace: The New Wave

Abstract

For any student of popular culture, it is instructive to notice how quickly a trend can pass, or at least descend into the realms of exhaustion and self-parody. Of course, such a progression is often mirrored by the fall from grace of key progenitors of such trends — and nothing illustrates this sobering thesis more lucidly than the example of the British director Guy Ritchie and the movement he was instrumental in launching: the streetwise, comedically-inclined hyper-violent London gangster movie of the late 1990s, invariably featuring either wisecracking Cockney wide-boys out of their depth or massively cruel, stone-faced psychopathic killers (often in the same films, the former relentlessly pursued by the latter). It’s a film trend which is still producing a variety of examples today, but the kind of acclaim and audience enthusiasm which accompanied the early work in the field now largely seems a distant memory.