Action-film director Evans punches way into TV with ‘Gangs of London’
When watching a film by
Welsh director Gareth Evans, especially his head-cracking, neck-snapping action films “The Raid: Redemption” and “The
Raid 2,” few have ever said, “You know, something like this really belongs on TV in the same time slot as ‘NCIS: New Orleans’ and ‘Good Girls.’ ”
And yet, here we are, as that’s exactly what’s happening April 4 when “Gangs of London,” the often brutal and breathless crime-family drama Evans cocreated with his longtime cinematographer Matt Flannery, debuts at 9 p.m. on AMC’s basic cable channel (it has already been made available on AMC+, the network’s premium streaming channel).
No one is more surprised than Evans that he’s involved with a TV series, but he says telling this particular story — a hydra-headed family grappling for control of its criminal enterprises after the death of the patriarch leaves a power vacuum — with depth and detail demanded more than what a two- or even three-hour movie could contain. This “Succession” with a higher body count was actually pitched to him as the first of a film franchise, but even that wasn’t enough.
“I started looking at the material, and I couldn’t shake off the fact that the thing that was so interesting about London as a city is the same thing that makes New York a really interesting city, in terms of being multicultural and on every street, you hear five to 10 different languages,” Evans says in a phone interview. “That’s something we wanted to explore within the show. And I just felt that in order to do that justice … a long-form narrative would allow us more freedom and flexibility, and more opportunities to go off and explore different cultures, different backgrounds and different characters.”
Those cultures — from Caribbean, Nigerian and Irish Traveler to South Asian, Albanian, Kurdish and English — clash in the wake of the murder of Finn Wallace (played by Colm Meaney), London’s crime kingpin. Many years earlier, when he was a poor Irish immigrant, Finn had made an alliance with Ed Dumani (Lucian Msamati), who’s Black, and built a multiracial drug empire in which both his son, Sean ( Joe Cole, “Peaky Blinders”), and
Ed’s son, Alexander (Paapa Essiedu, “I May Destroy You”), would be heirs.
They are raised almost as brothers with Alexander as the mediafriendly, business-savvy front for the family’s legitimate real estate/ development businesses while Joe is the figure lurking in the background, overseeing the underworld operation that turned them into overlords. Their success as an Irish-Black enterprise, Finn believes, is a big middle finger to the
English establishment. His death puts all of that at risk.
“We played on the idea of, in the ’60s and ’70s in Britain, there were places with signs that said, ‘No Blacks. No Irish,’ ” says Evans. “And so we played up the idea of the coming-together of these two families. That they would have faced obstacles and challenges, but then they would have met them and overcome them, and carved a place for themselves within this obviously fictional
‘Gangs of London’ When: 9 p.m. Sundays Network: AMC; all episodes available for streaming at AMC+
criminal underworld that we’ve created in the show.”
‘Sopranos’ with martial arts
Dropped into the middle of all this figurative and literal backstabbing is Elliot Finch (Sope Dirisu), initially a bit of a mystery man who wants to insinuate himself into the higher circles of the Wallace family. That he also has mad martial-arts skills just happens to be a nice little flourish to put on the résumé.
Balancing these two elements — the “Sopranos”-like family-dysfunction drama and the action set pieces from the man who gave us “The Raid” movies, two of the best action movies ever — wasn’t as difficult as it might seem. The level of explosive violence — the pub-brawl finale of Episode 1 or the mano-a-mano with a halfnaked guy with a cleaver in Episode 2, for example — is bracing .
“The two went hand in hand,” Evans says. “We knew we were going to have these moments of action, of high-octane thrills. But we knew we couldn’t build a show that was entirely that.”
Evans, who directed three of the 10 episodes, says he didn’t get much network pushback about the violence (the series originally aired on Sky Atlantic, a British pay-TV channel). “It never became a talking point,” he says. “Even when the show is aggressive in places, it was never made in a way to feel exploitative of the violence. It was always there in support of the story, and in support of the characters.”
On the surface, “Gangs of London” might not seem to have much in common two other recent British TV exports, Steve McQueen’s five-part anthology “Small Axe,” a portrait of England’s Caribbean immigrant communities in the ’70s and ’80s, and Michaela Coel’s powerfully personal “I May Destroy You,” which deals with the aftermath of rape. Yet each offers a glimpse into contemporary Afro-British life that’s a world away from the polite, period confines of “Downton Abbey” and a previous generation of English TV.
“I think it’s high time for it really, to be honest,” Evans says. “There’s been some incredible work that has highlighted (this world), especially with ‘I May Destroy You’ and ‘Small Axe.’ ”
No ‘Raid 3’
“Gangs of London” was a huge hit when it aired in the U.K. last year, and a second season was quickly ordered. But fans will be saddened to learn that Evans, currently working on an action film starring Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker with the very subtle title of “Havoc,” won’t be directing any episodes.
“‘Havoc’ is going to be pretty much my priority and take up a lot of my time over the next 12 months, so, unfortunately, I won’t (be directing ‘Gangs’), but I will be able to be a very keen viewer,” he says with a laugh.
Also not in the pipeline is the ill-fated third “Raid” movie, which, right after “The Raid 2” was released in 2014, Evans had said would be coming. But he later backtracked, saying he wouldn’t make a third film after all, though he had an entire plot worked out, as he revealed last year on “The Empire Spoiler Special Podcast.”
“It’s just one of those things where (time) just slipped by,” he says. “And then, with each new project that came, I ended up wanting to do those. Then you get to the point where you’re seven years down the line. You look back on it, and you’re thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m probably never going to get around to doing that one now.’ … It’s incredibly humbling that people responded to those films the way they did. And it gifted me my career no end. But I think my journey with ‘The Raid’ is done.”