Man Dancin' (2003) & The Business (2005)

I always force myself to watch British gangster flicks on the grounds that it is part of my continuing education, but since I seldom enjoy them, you might say that it is part of the penance that I pay for my obsession with movies.  These two, neither of which are outstanding, are a good case in point.  The first presented a oft-incurred problem with this genre: inpenetrable accents -- but at least I could rely on subtitles to follow the story set in Glasgow.  The lead was played by Alex Ferns, an actor from television, as a released-after-nine-years con who tries to withstand the temptations of his old gangster life, particularly hoping to move away after his probation to save his younger brother from the same easy option.  But Mr. Big (James Cosmo -- he always seems to play such roles) still considers him one of "his boys" and won't let go.  Ferns finds a kind of salvation, after rescuing several girls from prostitution, in the neighbourhood church's nativity play, which he rewrites to reflect local and modern politics.  Cosmo puts pressure on the tame detective who is on his payroll to teach Ferns a lesson, but his various efforts backfire (including killing off the one really likeable character) before the disastrous yet presumably uplifting finale. 

"The Business" was a far more conventional Britflick starring Danny Dyer as a would-be mobster who runs an errand to the Costa del Sol where he is taken up as a protege of the local big man, played interestingly enough by Tamer Hassan (whom I assume comes from an ethnic background).  The movie is set in the '80s and they are involved in drug-running, initially pot from Morocco but later cocaine from Columbia.  Dyer finds himself more and more seduced by the easy riches and available sex, until the whole gang comes a cropper by falling foul of the local mayor.  Dyer is by now totally immoral and works out a plan to extricate himself; the whole movie seems set up for the amusing but ultimately bad pun on his future during the end titles, where the fate of each main character is revealed.

By and large I probably prefered the first of these two because of its less usual storyline, but the second was probably the better-made film.  However I doubt that either movie made much impact at the UK box office and they would stand little chance of success elsewhere.  Yet people keep churning out films like these two -- where does the finance come from?