Owt Good On, Mam? – Dave Courtney

Regular readers know the people I'm most drawn to are those who decided they'd become a character, from which they never broke. Hulk Hogan. John McCririck. Dave Courtney. Late 90's culture was fascinated with gangland figures, due in part to the 60's revival, yearning for a return to swinging London, to hang out with Michael Caine, Twiggy and the Krays. Into this fad, along with Howard Marks speaking tours and 'Mad' Frankie Fraser popping up as the baddie in a Reservoir Dogs rip-off swaggered Dave Courtney; a knuckle duster waving self-publicist more than happy to tell all about a wild life of crime (which he definitely didn't do any more!). Despite having somewhat of a fantasist rep among other noted bad lads, Courtney quickly built an empire of going on and on about being hard, churning out books like David Walliams, being profiled in various documentaries (including one where he got the hump with a children's magician), being the subject of a Rancid song where they portrayed him as a literal gangland Robin Hood, and even going into porn. Consequently, since I started doing these, the grim inevitability of tackling Courtney's oeuvre hung over me like a 300% interest debt to a violent loan shark.

We're starting back with 1991's Bermondsy Boy, before Courtney was a name and merely a debt collector being profiled in a BBC2 strand called From Wimps to Warriors; a six-part series “examining the lives of men, particularly on sex and relationships, and some of the myths of masculinity.” Other episodes include men who dominate women in S&M relationships, and men who are angry because their wives go to work, and though you might be imagining the shock-doc genre Channel 4 churn out about Blokes Who Have Sex With Bins, this is artful early 90's BBC; mediations on what it is to be a man, all at a Dutch angle with the sort of droning atonal soundscape I usually dub over creepy old puppets. That said, the YouTuber that uploaded the VHS rip stuck their own tag on the front, shot portrait mode on a phone, of knuckle dusters being loudly dropped on a kitchen counter.

Dave's still got hair here, angrily punching at a bag, slow pan up gold jewellery tangled in his sweaty, hairy chest, as he talks of having no remorse, guilt, or compassion when duffing up other lads. The camera's fascinated with the figure of Dave Courtney, giving fearful, loving gaze, and there's a real sense of a trustafarian film school toff feeling he's 'discovered' an incredible slice of reality in such a brutalist creature. “This chap releases gas from from the hole below his testicles. I promise, you have never seen anything like it!” Filmed from above while sat on the bed in just a towel, resembling the Buddha, Dave shows off scars from being bottled and stabbed. Then he's playing with his kids, pelting round a rubbish-strewn back yard, child on his back, sword-fighting with two half-burned planks of wood from a bonfire.

I had seen this documentary before, and three scenes really stuck with me. The first follows Dave on the job, evicting a group of squatters. His debt collecting outfit is an unfortunate combo of early 90's tough guy fashion worn by a man really leaning into it. Knuckle dusters over black leather gloves with red trim, gold chains on the wrist, aviator sunglasses with another thin chain hanging hanging off the arms like Hinge and Bracket, with extremely tight blue jeans, and topped off by the sort of enormously-shouldered leather jacket Wham-era George Michael would've considered too flamboyant. There's no way around it; Dave and his similarly-attired mates booting in the door just look like a live action Tom of Finland adaptation (don't Google that if you're at work). In a moment which is certainly not faked for dramatic effect, he offers startled residents one chance not to get 'urt, barking “SHUTTUP, DARLIN'!” at scared-looking student types, and threatening if he comes back next week to find anyone still here, he'll “break you in 'alf!”

The sudden cut from this to the next scene is the most sudden cut in anything ever, from chucking squatters' clothes out of a window, to – with absolutely no warning – an overhead shot of Dave Courtney laying in the bath, flat on his back, barely enough water to cover his dick and bollocks, let alone any bubbles. It's perhaps the most hilariously needless nudity ever broadcast. Was this the director's idea? Dave's? It's meant to give an air of vulnerability; the hard man completely exposed; but if you mute the thug-philosophy witterings, it's simply a very small penis, displayed on your screen for ages. Dave's voice-over talks of working the doors and “throwing out geezers for selling coke,” plus the attempted murder charge he's currently facing, which centres the documentary. However, the viewer's eye refuses to be drawn from a strawberry-like penis and ballbag.

The third scene I remembered is still as fresh in my mind as the first time I saw it, with a grimness which cannot be cleansed. A picnic is portrayed with the frenetic, escalating editing of Uncut Gems, a battering soundtrack of drums and dog whines, as Dave and his mates laze about on blankets on a wasteland. Dave's in a big hat, chains round his neck like Mr. T as he licks a Rizla. There are black pit bulls everywhere, being teased and taunted; drool swinging and heads snapping side to side in rough tugs of war. The camera constantly cuts back from men talking on big mobiles or doing wheelies on a dirt bike, to footage of two pit bulls having sex while Dave's mates cheer it on. One bloke pushes down on the male dog's arse as it pumps away, to help it really give her one, even using his boot for maximum purchase.

This lovely afternoon ends on Dave hand-in-hand with his little boy – around seven years old – filmed from some distance under jangly horror-esque music, as dad reminisces with son about various beatings he's doled out, laughing about the time “daddy had a fight with a big black man” and kicked him down a hill; about beating the shit out of a man in a sunbed. Is this why Dave claims himself inspiration for Vinnie Jones' character in Lock, Stock? Any new fathers wondering how one might motivate their sons, simply sit beneath Courtney's learning tree, telling his boy he can be anything he wants – “biggest boy in the school, toughest boy, if you really, really want to, you can bash him right up!” He knows Jr's hard, because yesterday he lost all his teeth and didn't even cry. “You went flying across me jeep, smashed your face in the dashboard. That's tough, mate!”

As his court date looms, we keep returning to the bath; the movie cliché of a man staring into the mirror questioning his choices. Close-ups slowly search across Dave's chest hair, boxing glove pendant entangled like an abandoned bird nest, and eventually finding a nipple, which sits there like a pork scratching, as he opines on not fancying prison, because your cell-mate will see you “goin'a toilet.” He repossesses a van; stands smoking a cigar as Lennie McClean talks about taking fellas' heads right off; informs us “a bonk” is more exciting than making love. I'm sorry, but you can't purport to be a hardman and unironically describe sex as 'bonking' like a tabloid headline about a randy vicar. “I'm gonna cut yer fuckin' legs off with a machete, you mug, then dissolve 'em in acid and make you watch while I give your wife a ruddy good bonking with my tadger!” Through all this, the direction does its best to remain highbrow; Dave's monologue about throbbing morning erections told in tight close-up of his gob.

After a farewell dinner, head of a rowdy table in a Chinese restaurant, braying about the Chinese – “never trust those bastards, kept smiling all the way through Pearl Harbour, didn't like that” – in front of scared-looking waiters, Dave lands a not guilty. A voice behind the camera asks if he did it. “What,” replies Dave, “give him a clump? No comment.” Quickly followed by “yeah, I did.” The film ends with Dave and his mate knocking on another door with baseball bats. But thank goodness for our broken justice system, as with Dave inside, we would've never gotten a slew of cinematic treasures made specifically for the lads you went to school with whose favourite movie is Rise of the Footsoldier 3: The Pat Tate Story.

Though I'm sure they're not – they're definitely not! – everything on Dave's IMDB page feels as much like money laundering as an excuse for everyone to play-act as World's Hardest Gangster, waving guns around with topless women on their laps. His acting career began with cameos and bit parts, including a role as Jerry Sadowitz's bodyguard on his short-lived Channel 5 show, before appearing in some blueys, as himself in Lock, Cock, and Two Smoking Bimbos, and as the Devil in Cathula II: Vampires of Sex. In 2003, he's 'Mad Dave' in Triads, Yardies & Onion Bhajees! (exclamation mark part of the title), but two years later comes what he likely considers his opus, Hell To Pay. Credited as co-writer, again he stars as a gangsta called Dave – Dave Malone – and thus begins a run of phenomenal casts, packed with MMA fighters, hooligans, glamour models, ex-soap stars, and random The Sun-type celebrities, all playing either coppers or criminals.

John Altman (Nasty Nick off EastEnders) – Policeman

Nasty Nick (Nasty Nick off Big Brother) – Policeman

Jo Guest – Policewoman

Billy Murray – Larry Malone

Cass Pennant (famous football hooligan) – Malone's Gangster

Spider off Coronation Street – Martin

Garry Bushell – One of Larry's Goons

2008 brings Clubbing To Death, where Dave stars as non-Dave Harry Dench, along with another cracking list of co-stars, including Craig Charles, Sanjay off EastEnders, Jakki Degg, Lucinda off Harry and Cosh, and Fun Lovin' Criminal Huey Morgan as 'The Don'. Dave then pops up in the notorious Killer Bitch, alongside Alex Reid, some football hooligans, and Most Haunted's demonologist, Fred Batt. In Looters, Tooters and Sawn-Off Shooters – really favouring the Lock, Stock title cadence – Dave (as Mickey Savage) plays against Les Battersby off Corrie, while Gangsters Gamblers Geezers sees him brandishing a shotgun on the cover, as part of an ensemble including Richard Blackwood, Jodie Marsh, Ben Dover, Big Narstie, Heavy D, Liz from Atomic Kitten, Nigel from EastEnders' dead wife, the lad who played Nasty Nick's son, and celebrity hairdresser Lee Stafford.

Undoubted peak is 2017's Gatwick Gangsters, where Dave plays 'crime boss Ray Razor', against arch villains Diamond Larry (Bobby George) and The Beast (Willie Thorne), all co-directed and co-written by a man named Shampagne; though sadly credited under his real name of Sid Clack. It's clearly my unavoidable destiny to someday take a header into the entire cinematic past of Dave Courtney, particularly 2019's Satanic-themed The Seven, featuring Dave's 'Mr Phillips Squeaky' alongside Alex Reid, Sinitta, Gary Webster off Minder, and as High Priest Asael, Dean 'the worst Superman' Cain. But for today, let's focus on a film where top-billed Dave Courtney is the most notable cast member – Full English Breakfast.

I almost jumped off the roof when I saw the running time of nearly two hours, and after a production logo of a gun with the word DANGERTAINMENT, we open on close-ups of greasy cafe fry-ups being scoffed by men in hi-vis, complete with egregiously dubbed-on cutting/chewing sound effects as horrible looking breakfasts shovel into gobs, and a bloke raises his eyebrows at Page 3 of The Sun. A man called Jamie in dirty camo gets booted out for having no money, and when angrily kicking empty cardboard boxes, comes across a lost wallet bearing the initials DB. Of course, this is Dave Bishop, celebrity drug lord, and as Jamie goes to DB's gaff to return it, he's offered a job as Dave's new driver; fortuitously, as Dave's just taken current driver, Habib, into another room to kill him with a golf club while classical music plays. When he swings it for the POV shot, Dave's clearly aware of not hitting the camera and they don't edit out his very obvious pause, while the sound effects of him battering Habib are like something from Earthworm Jim.

Let's get this out of the way – because it's absolutely clear within the opening ten seconds – Full English Breakfast is fucking appalling. The one thing which really defines a film as having been made by someone who has no idea what they're doing is that every scene goes on way too long. Just Jamie looking at the wallet takes forever, cutting back and forth between his eyes; his hand brushing the leather; a medium shot sat on a bench gawping. That's the whole film. Characters are constantly walking, very slowly, all the way across a room, with many scenes shot from a tripod of a person ambling the entire length of a lawn, or fully around a car before getting into it. After Dave takes him in, there's a lengthy montage of Jamie walking to the woods to collect his sleeping bag and tramp supplies, meticulously tying everything up in a rucksack, and then walking back the way he came, in case viewers lay awake wondering what happened to his tin cans and drink bottle.

In the most basic of stories, Jamie moves into Dave's house as his new driver – licence plate W34LTH – running errands, quickly rising to right hand man in the drug empire, and beginning an affair with Dave's much younger wife, after she hears him screaming during PTSD nightmares about accidentally shooting a child in the army. Yes, Jamie's fresh from a tour of Afghanistan, a place the film is obsessed with, with the words “you were/I was in Afghanistan” said multiple times by various characters. Drug rivals – licence plate AF6HAN – are constantly told they're members of the Taliban (later revealed to genuinely be ex-Al-Qaeda).

There's most of the usual gangster shite you'd expect; obvious day-for-night as they enter a club and Dave greets a black associate with “wagwan?”; a shed filled with boxes of 'ecstasy tablets' which are clearly just mints. The most fun to be had in Full English is spotting the camera that's got a speck of dirt on the lens. There's five minutes of story over two hours, all with the vibe of cut scenes from The Getaway – a game I once played at my elderly grandad's while he watched me having to re-do a level dozens of times, which always began with the unskippable dialogue “Gotta go and see this Hector nonce. Hector? Sounds like a CUNT'S name!”

In London, Jamie spots Dave's tell-all autobiography, where someone's made the choice to shelve it next to The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler. The in-story book is a plot device, with mysterious flashbacks showing Jamie reading it in Afghanistan, revealing he knew all about Dave before finding the wallet. But soon Jamie's followed in London (during the carnival, as suggested by dubbed-on party blowers) and injected with a syringe of blue liquid, waking up to find himself being waterboarded by Habib's brother. Though they fought on different sides IN AFGHANISTAN, the brother spots an 'STF' on Jamie's dog tag; short for Special Task Force, and decides to team up with him. Note that Jamie's one of those schlubby no-budget leads who, despite (so we're told) being an absolute killing machine, he'd lose an arm wrestle to me quick-sharp. He also sounds like he needs to clear his throat.

It's here I should point out the film's defining characteristic; the choice (or perhaps technical inability) to use zero natural sound, and dub everything on in post. It's this which transforms Full English from completely unwatchable to a right laugh, as every scene's riddled with heavy-handed sound effects; footsteps crunching and tapping like a 50's radio play; every door creaking like Dracula's tomb. Though the film's set in Kent, night-set moments have a deafening chorus of crickets, while daytime's filled with one looping stock “caw-caw!” of a nearby crow. All dialogue's far too loud, magically elevating already-awful performances into something worse, with the quality of a CD-ROM FMV game, and Dave sounds like he recorded his lines while horizontal, probably in the bath. The soundtrack consists of two main tracks which show up in multiple scenes; one a jaunty Britpop instrumental, the other a rap which goes “mic check, one two, one two, UH, I represent, this is what I do.” Each of the many times these crop up, they're replayed from the very beginning. When Jamie runs off to Paris with Mrs Dave for the final act, there's an instrumental cover of Je T'aime with a few notes moved around to avoid copyright, and as they cut back and forth between her scenes and the action at Dave's house, the song is restarted nine times.

It should be said that, despite being the entire reason for his casting, Dave Courtney is not an intimidating presence, staggering round like an exhausted bollock. In the climactic fight vs. Habib's brother, it's like watching a Space Hopper roll about your neighbour's garden in a breeze, as he stamps on a head with all the zest of elderly Di Niro with his eyebags CGed out in The Irishman. A late-game twist has Dave catch a purple syringe in the foot and wake up chained in a shipping container to get his throat slit, where we learn Jamie is the bastard son he abandoned as a baby; a story illustrated by real photos of young Dave, Wimps to Warriors era, stood with Lennie McClean and posing with brass knucks. At least he didn't have his acorn out. It's suggested Jamie planned the whole thing from the beginning, despite quite obviously happening on the wallet by chance.

End credits are a real tonal shift, with a jaunty song to the tune of Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside going “ohhh I do like a full English breakfast!” which starts with Dave growling “well, I didn't come in here for a curry, did I?” Clearly they were hoping for a credit-song hit, but it's no Dragnet rap, as a man lists the ingredients of a fry-up while Dave, now as himself, aggressively informs listeners “my name's Dave Courtney and I'm gonna tell you what made England great – the full English breakfast!” These days, woke lefties will have you arrested if they see fat going into a frying pan! Less of a surprise was spotting a free stock sound effects website listed on the credits. Well, now I've partially fulfilled my Dave-based destiny, although once this piece goes live and Courtney's fans let him know about it, I'll likely be found in the canal, all bloated, with two broken arms and a bookie's pen where my nob used to be. But at least that way I'll never have to watch Gatwick Gangsters.