In This Section
TV Guide Spotlight
Also on TVGuide.com
|
« Ask FlickChick
Helen Mirren: From Gun Moll to The Queen
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
In honor of the marvelous Helen Mirren, who walked away from the Golden Globes with a pair of richly deserved awards for The Queen and the television miniseries Elizabeth I, this week's film is John Mackenzie's U.K. gangster picture The Long Good Friday (1980).
I vividly remember seeing The Long Good Friday when it opened briefly and with little fanfare in New York in 1982: I went into the theater with no expectations and came out feeling as though I'd been kicked between the eyes — which I mean in the best possible way. And I came out in awe of Helen Mirren, whom I later realized I'd already seen in the notoriously hard-core historical spectacle Caligula (1979), which probably represents the last time Bob Guccione and Gore Vidal's names appeared in the same sentence. But I digress: Caligula is a story for another day.
Cockney villain Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) dreams big, and his dreams are on the verge of coming true: Guided by his longtime girlfriend, educated, upper-class Victoria (Helen Mirren), Harold has put together an ambitious riverbank development project that will transform him from shady operator to world-class real-estate entrepreneur, and all he needs is a major infusion of cash from New Jersey-based Mafia don Charlie (Eddie Constantine). But the day Charlie and his minions arrive for a lavish Easter-weekend party/Thames River tour aboard Harold's yacht, all hell breaks loose. Someone begins killing off Harold's associates and sabotaging his properties, every act of violence further convincing the American gangsters that Harold doesn't have his business under control and thus imperiling the deal. Harold's increasingly desperate efforts to find out who's trying to ruin him and why drive this tough, convoluted crime thriller, but Hopkins and Mirren's performances are mesmerizing, as is the score by classically trained art-rock composer and Curved Air founder Francis Monkman.
The Long Good Friday unfolds at the intersection of profit-driven crime and sociopolitically motivated violence, and it's one tough, clear-eyed little movie that links pioneering U.K. gangster movies like Brighton Rock (1947) to more recent films examples like Sexy Beast (2000) and Gangster No. 1. I can't recommend it highly enough.... Oh, and Bond fans, take note of a very young Pierce Brosnan as a hit man in a teeny-weeny swimsuit.
Things to consider:
American gangster movies like The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932) established a set of conventions that have been mimicked, subverted, adapted, deconstructed, remade, revised and rediscovered over the course of some eight decades and in a wide range of cultural milieus. What are some of the genre's fundamental conventions?
Are the workings of an established criminal subculture the mirror of larger cultural structures — Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and Godfather II (1974), for example, are widely discussed as critiques of American capitalism — or are they a degenerate alternative to them?
Are U.K. gangster films especially shocking because of the prevailing notion that Great Britain is an inherently civilized country?
Remember: Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
Previous DVD Tuesday blogs:
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
Also: This week's new DVD releases
|
TVGuide Links:
|
|
|
|
Jan 18, 2007 1:17 PM
|
|
So what, exactly, is the story behind Caligula ?
|
|
Jan 18, 2007 1:39 PM
|
I would normally chime in on the "Things to Consider" topics. But gangster flicks are just about my least favorite genre. So I will just mention that I love watching Helen Mirren and, based on what Maitland wrote, will give The Long Good Friday a viewing if I ever run across it on TV (I still like to watch movies on TV even more than on DVD).
I had seen Mirren for years and never really took notice of her until, of course, Prime Suspect got such high praise. Now I figure any thing she's in is worth watching... except, Maitland, I am afraid you still haven't sold me on giving up two hours to watch Shadowboxer!
I will say that if stuff like Lock, Stock etc. and Snatch are any indication, I dislike UK gangster flicks more than American ones...
|
|
Jan 18, 2007 6:01 PM
|
I just love gangster movies when they are done well. An ideal day at the movies would start with Public Enemy, The Roaring Twenties, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and Angels With Dirty Faces. After a break, The Killing, Love Honor And Obey, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Guns Gangster Number 1, I Went Down and Hoodlum. And I wouldn't mind SnatchGoodfellas A Bronx Tale and the first two Godfathers to make it an overnighter. And I could still go home and watch the Ray Sharkey arc of Wiseguys and a couple of episodes of the Sopranos on DVD.
Achy, your movie knowledge and viewing experience is pretty comprehensive so I would imagine you've seen films like They Drive By Night, Public Enemy or Angels With DIrty Faces. If you have and just didn't like them then I guess that's just your taste but if you haven't I always recommend getting into a genre as close to the beginning as possible. Public Enemy would be where I'd start. If that one or Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye don't get you then you ain't gonna get got. If you're willing to, give them another chance try dismissing the genre and taking a look at the pacing, the humor the subtle touches that Cagney gives to his performances. I saw a lot of this type of film even before I was a teenager and some things went right past me-like Cagney's not so subtle mocking of the mincing tailor in Public Enemy. Maybe being on the lookout for such things would enhance your enjoyment of the films. You don't seem to be the kind of filmgoer who dismisses things out of hand without giving them a chance so, like I said, this argument may be meaningless in the face of the fact that you just don't like the genre but if I can have any small part in getting you to rethink and therefore add to the pleasure of watching movies for you I'd be proud.
As for Helen Mirren I had the same experience as Maitland. I'd seen her in Caligula before I saw The Long Good Friday but I have to admit that I didn't connect the performances. I was so knocked out by Bob Hoskins that I hardly noticed anyone else on the screen in Friday.
I did, independently, notice Mirren in Caligula. There is a sex scene in the kitchen during which she places her elbows on the table and puts her chin in her clasped hands and dsiplays the most detached yet sensual even debauched look on her face that I have ever seen in a film. There were other more explicit scenes in the film but that one stays in my memory as one of the most erotic I have ever seen. I found her equally memorable in The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover.
Despite my reactions to her I am at a loss to explain her sex appeal. As she continues, even in her '60s to receive parts that play on that appeal I realize that I am not the only one who feels that way about her. Even in her youth she was not particularly pretty by common standards nor did she have the body of a traditional bombshell.
Certainly there is an argument that she is "acting" sexy but with Mirren it doesn't seem to be something she is doing. It seems to be something she is. Add her considerable acting skills to the mix and it's easy to see why she continues to receive the accolades she does. She's an absolute favorite.
|
|
Jan 24, 2007 3:05 AM
|
|
|
