Film Review

Duchess (2024) — frustrating jewel smuggling caper is no diamond in the rough

A tough, working-class, petty criminal morphs into an anti-heroine to be reckoned with in a murky underworld…

What is it with gangsters and nicknames? Whether monikers are adopted to strike fear into the hearts of rivals, or whether a legal name is just too prosaic for the mythological status of a gangster, there exists a long history of criminals — on screen and off — giving themselves a stage name.

Al Capone was known as ‘Scarface’ (though, if that nickname is brought up now, a different Al is likely to spring to mind). Ronnie Kray was ‘The Colonel’, while Charles Bronson demanded that fellow prisoners refer to him as ‘General’. There’s a difference, though, between a given nickname and a chosen one. The former suggests a twilight world of legend and rumour, while the latter suggests plain old insecurity. It seems that not even the most hardened criminal is immune from an identity crisis.

Neil Marshall’s new film, Duchess, revels in the criminal underworld, where nicknames fly…