Gangs Of London: 8 Issues That Hold It Back From Greatness
2. It's Not As Emotionally Powerful As It Could've Been
Gangs of London does have some strong moments of drama, with the ending scene of episode seven being the best example of this, but such scenes don't come often enough.
The character arcs, especially that of Sean Wallace, feel sketchy and one can't help but feel the focus was mainly on the action scenes. As a result, Gangs of London does feel fairly style-over-substance much of the time and while you will most likely enjoy it plenty, you'll only be genuinely moved by it occasionally.
To be honest, this isn't entirely surprising. Gareth Evans is a completely masterful filmmaker, but as a screenwriter he's more hit-or-miss. For example, The Raid 2 has some of the best action scenes of recent times but wasn't entirely successful as a film since the story was weak, while the less said about that ridiculous folk horror film, Apostle, that he did for Netflix the better.