Small Faces (1996)

from Small Faces

Scottish filmmaker Gillies MacKinnon gives us a dose of "brutal reality" in this gorgeously-photographed film set in 1960's Glasgow about gangs (especially the "Tongs"). Thanks to the Sundance channel, I was able to see this film, uncut.

Lex is offered a knife for "protection"

Lex Maclean, a thirteen-year-old who lives with his mother and two older brothers (Alan and Bobby) is caught up in the violence of gang-activity (his brother, Bobby, being affiliated with the Glen gang). After firing an air-gun at the maniacal leader of the Tongs, Malky Johnson, and hitting him at what at first appears to be in the eye (though it's confirmed later in the film that it was on the bridge of the nose or close-stitched) Lex knows that there will probably some form of retrobution in the near future. The Glen gang leader, Charlie Sloan, offers Lex a bit of help in the form of protection, but only if Lex will work with Sloan and his former gang-mates (Lex eventually ventures to the dangerous "Tongland" to act as a "spy," but really to somewhat "throw off" the Tongs into believing he wants to join their gang. That all backfires, of course).

Eventually we are shown a splay of human emotion throughout the film (including death, of course), proving to one how violent human beings can be in certain "rough 'n' tough" neighborhoods throughout the world -- especially when there is high gang-activity swarming the areas like manaical vultures awaiting their next pursuit of trouble, pecking at whatever they can get their hands on, as if it were like breaking apart asparagus.

Leader of the "Tongs," Malky Johnson