The E2 gang have the run of London's East End, vandalising homes, dealing drugs. and otherwise indulging in thuggish acts with no apparent fear of the police. Certainly, when an elderly man interrupts their planned gang rape of a young woman, they have no hesitation about kicking him to death.
They perhaps should have hesitated, however, because the dead man is Charlie Archer, who used to be one-half of a Kray Twins-style pair of gangsters with his brother Ritchie. The younger Archer sibling, and some friends from his active gangster days, are soon on the hunt for some old school payback.
Like a lot of people, I'm pretty easily suckered into the "aged legend shows they've still got it" trope, and the basic setup of We Still Kill The Old Way appealed to me. I imagined we might get something where the older gangsters used old tricks and low-tech street smarts to outwit their opponents. Unfortunately, the film just kind of has them do exactly the same things as their younger counterparts: they just wear suits while doing it and have the decency to not target people who aren't a part of their fight. For a film that hammers the "things were better in the old days" tune pretty hard throughout, it doesn't do a whole lot to justify those claims. If the script were a little smarter ... well, okay, actually it would need to be quite a lots smarter ... then that discrepancy between deeds and words could actually have been interesting. But there's no evidence that the audience is even supposed to notice the issue, with the film unapologetically framing the elder gangsters as heroes despite the fact that they cold-bloodedly torture and murder people.
The cast works hard here; it's a shame they weren't given stronger material to work with.
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