A Very British Gangster (15)

Journalist Donal MacIntyre, he of the soft Irish accent and Indiana Jones-style leather jacket, makes the leap from small screen to big with his first cinema-released documentary.

The gangster of the title is Manchester's Dominic Noonan, proud possessor of more than 40 convictions, including armed robbery.

The danger with portraits of this kind is that they glamorise the subject. MacIntyre largely avoids that trap, but only because Noonan is such an obvious loser. Even so, MacIntyre the director can't resist cheesy, Reservoir Dogs-style shots of Noonan's crew, ugly youths in cheap suits, walking down t'cobbled streets to an Oasis track.

Though it's predictable stuff, there are some surprises, all of which are documentary manna for MacIntyre. Yet just as no amount of big talk from Noonan will make him seem anything other than a bargain-basement Tony Soprano, there's no disguising that this is essentially a telly documentary trying to punch above its weight.