Codes and Conventions of Crime/Gangster Films

Crime and gangster film revolve around nasty and sinister poeple doing things which are below the law, such as murders, robberies, gang crime and illegal gambling. These nasty charachters and events make the film fits with the codes and conventions of a crime/gangster film.

In Crime films there are normally some stock characters, there will always be a boss, he will be a big time drug or weapons dealer. There will also be some small time criminals who are "sucking up" to the Boss, these characters are often poor and desperate for money. In a Crime film you expect to see alot of tense and scary scenes, these scenes will often be edited together with sinister music and very fast cuts to add to the suspense. The audience expect to see a a mainly male cast film, these males will be very violent which makes good veiwing. There will also be female characters but they will treated quite sexistly, but these females will also be quite violent.

There are many sub genres from crime/ ganste films:

- Hiest films

- Crime Thrillers

- Detective films

- Crime Horrors

- True Crime

- Crime Comedies

- Mob

- Hood

From a Crime or Ganster film you expect to see alot of brutal violence using weapons and guns, you may also expect to see gang crime and petty thieves on the street. But depending on the film and where it is set you may see different things, for example if it was set in inner city London you would expect to see alot of knife crime and small time criminals. Whereas if it was set in Italy, you would expect to see some big time gangsters who dress very smartly and deal in weapons and drugs but never "get their hands dirty". You will often see two oposing gangs attacking eachother or stealing drugs or weapons from one another