The Limey
by Steven Soderbergh
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Terence StampDirector: Steven Soderbergh
Brand: Lions Gate
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-02-20
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of The Limey
Movie Review: The push that Soderbergh needed towards greatness
Summary: 5 Stars
I will not pretend this is not my favorite American film ever, it is. I first saw this in the initial theatrical release in 1999. This is the film that made me change my major from marketing to film, and change my goals in business, and life. Now that's an impact on at least one viewer. :-) This is also the film, that I believe pushed Director Steven Soderbergh over the cusp of greatness. Already with an impressive body of work in "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", "Gray's Anatomy", and the outstanding thriller "Out of Sight", here the director applies the sum of his education, and gives you the the single most innovative revenge/crime thriller in American film.
I will touch on the plot briefly as far better writers than I already have well covered it dozens of times over. Terrance Stamp portrays career con Wilson, a cockney Brit who travels to L.A. upon his release to get answers concerning the suspicious "accidental" death of his estranged daughter. Upon arriving he makes contact with his daughters friend Eduardo, wonderfully portrayed by the usually underutilized Luis Guzman, and, voice/acting coach played by Lesley Ann Warren. After cutting through some henchman types who had recently come in contact with Wilson's child, his path of revenge leads to aging 60's icon, record producer Terry Valentine. Valentine is portrayed by the legendary Peter Fonda, who is at his most animated, and sleazy best as the cowardly Valentine.
Everybody in this film is absolutly terrific which is typical of a Soderbergh cast who seems to just bring the best out of a cast like nobody else. One cast member who gets no notice in any of the reviews I have seen is Melissa George who in haunting flashbacks, and Wilson's imagination portrays his daughter Jenny. I cannot give this young lady enough credit for giving such a revealing face to a character only seen in memory, with no voice, with no dialouge. She is beautiful, meloncholy, and unforgettable and manages without ever speaking to give somekind of voice to the voiceless along with another young actress named Michela Gallo who does duties as the young child of Wilson's memories.
The direction of Sodergergh, and most importantly his cutting of the film alongside editor Sarah Flack is imaginitive, and daring. The cut is as chaotic as the memories of a faded conman, who time passed by so long ago would be, yet the direction of this cut is nothing short of masterful. Much like the era the antagonist/protagonist saw thier heyday in, Soderbergh weaves the surreal, with the very real, advances the story, and studies his "hero" in ways that I had never imagined before seeing "The Limey". This film could not have been made without Stamp, and Soderbergh has said as much before. The icon easily outperformed any and every actor in 1999, and got nothing in the way of nominations for this achievement, which I still think a travesty. This is a film with excellent dialouge, but never relies on dialouge to explain, or advance, or develop. The breadth of Wilson's development in our eyes is done for just that, our eyes. Stamp's face, his eyes, his mouth, his body language tell us all we ever need to know. It seems that everybody looks at this as a crime thriller, but really this is human drama, and character study at it's finest.
I've followed Soderbergh for many years, and this was a really fun step in his progession to the director who will soon be tackling Che Guavera in an epic that I had onced hoped to make. But I won't hold it against him :-)
If you want a great work, that you will watch again, and again....go to the top of the page and order this gem.
Summary of The Limey
British ex-con Wilson (Terence Stamp) arrives in Los Angeles to investigate the mystery of his daughter's "accidental" death. His prime suspect, the wealthy, heavily guarded, music promoter Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), is no easy target. Propelled into an increasingly brutal search for truth, Wilson, with single-mindedness and terrifying precision, moves unstoppably toward revenge.Steven Soderbergh's follow-up to his sexy thriller Out of Sight is an equally stylish but far more austere crime drama, a work of memory that mixes flashbacks, flashforwards, and ruminations on the present into an invigorating cinematic quilt. Terence Stamp is Wilson, an aging cockney criminal fresh out of prison who flies to Los Angeles to search for his daughter's killer. She died in a car wreck, but he suspects that her lover, a music industry mogul named Valentine (Peter Fonda), knows more than he's telling. Wilson is a fish out of water indeed, a cool, cruel London thug on the airy, sun-bright street of L.A., a silver-haired criminal taking on street punks and hit men with the relentless drive of a man possessed. It's like Get Carter channeled through Point Blank, a hard-edged revenge thriller steeped in sorrow and regret, trading the warmth of Out of Sight's romantic heat for a more contemplative remove. Fonda beautifully plays off his cinematic history of 1960s hippies and rebels as a nervous, cowardly millionaire sellout in white cotton peasant shirts and a deep California tan. Luiz Guzman and Lesley Ann Warren costar as Wilson's "adopted" guides through modern L.A., and Barry Newman is excellent as Valentine's tough, terse head of security, another aging pro blindsided by Wilson's relentless single-mindedness. Soderbergh quotes from Ken Loach's 1967 film Poor Cow (sadly not available on video in the U.S.) for Wilson's flashbacks as a fresh-faced teenage thug. --Sean Axmaker
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