The Limey
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Movie Reviews of The Limey
Movie Review: Soderbergh goes beyonde himself
Summary: 5 Stars
Steven Soderbergh is known as an director to whom everythings counts. He always keeps up with the details. He uses many tecnical resourses in lightning, editing, in the score and the most from actors in order to achieve a higher level from all his movies .Actors like George Clooney --`Out of Sight' and `Ocean's Eleven' -- and Julia Roberts -- `Erin Brockovich' and `Ocean's Eleven'-- have done their best job with him. But in `The Limey' he has gone one step further what he'd done before. Not only does he get amazing peformances from Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, but he also makes of editing and lightning real characters in this film. Telling the story of a father, Wilson, who wants to revenge the mysterious death of his daughter and comes accross a music producer, who is the girl's ex-boyfriend, sounds rather like an excuse for Soderbergh experiment in collors and cuts -- something that he used very often in his previous works and he would eventually use much more in the later movie `Traffic'. Moreover, he uses footage from the 1967 film `Poor Cow', which also feautured Stamp. It is at least strange to imagine that something shot 30 years earlier would be useful and fitting. I think only Soderbergh's genius mind would think of such a thing. And the result is much better than any make or computer work.
Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda --two icons of the `60s -- are at least impressive playing the main roles. Their `confrontation' is breath taking. The supporting cast also very effective. Luiz Guzmán -- a Soderbergh 's favourite -- and Lesley Ann Warren play former friends of Wilson's daugther.
Lem Dobbs `s script along with the direction make the film very French New Wave, but with a touch of the thrillers from the `60s and `70s, like `Point Blank'. The soudtrack also fits the movie. Pay attention to the song played in the opening credits: The Who's "The Seeker"; there couldn't be a music more perfect for Wilson.
Definetely this quiet character-driven movie is not for everyone. People who know Soderbergh's work only from crowd-pleaser like `Erin Brockovich' may feel very uncorfortable watching this movie. But, by the way, this IS a film to make everybody unconfortable: it tackles moral issues, like revenge and guilt. That, as everybody knows, are not pieces of cake.
Movie Review: An all-time favorite.
Summary: 5 Stars
When you first encounter The Limey, you may not think much of it. The edit is unconventional if you're primarily used to major studio films. It's got a loose feel to the cinematography, like most Soderbergh films. It's not a slick, modern, hyperkinetic production. It's an episode in the midlife crisis of people who thought they'd die before they got old. However, these things that may make it somewhat less accessible at first heighten its appeal on future viewings. Characters are introduced with a brief montage -- almost like you'd see on a TV show title sequence. The edit weaves conversations together in ways that don't seem logical at first.
The Limey isn't a film about logic or cold, hard, objective fact. It's a highly subjective retelling of the events that make up the story -- apparently from the view of Terence Stamp's character on his way home. It exists in the memories of those involved -- memories of Stamp's visit to Los Angeles to sort out the death of his daughter; memories of his past. For Peter Fonda, memories of southern California in the '60s and past glory.
This reflective memory form influences the cinematography -- things take on a sun-drenched, yellow/orange hue that is not dissimilar to your childhood memories. The soundtrack, too, calls back to days past with its music mostly coming from the 60s. (It's one of the best soundtracks in a long time).
One of the most impressive scenes is a dialog between Stamp and Lesley Ann Warren. The scene plays in many different places -- a pier, an apartment, and so forth. The scene jumps between them, and were you to take it at face value, it would make no sense. But when you remember that the whole film is just a memory, it makes complete sense.
The Limey is an innovative movie, mostly because of its unconventional approach to what would have otherwise been a flat revenge picture. You'll either be turned off immediately or strangely curious. I hope it's the latter for you -- it's a very interesting movie with great performances by all involved. It's one of my absolute essential DVDs.
Movie Review: "Don't get your knickers twisted up!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Steven Soderbergh's "The Limey" is an understatement of an understatement punctuated by almost unbearable raptures of emotion--it's as though Soderbergh wanted to make the standard Hollyword fare of "Vengeance is Mine" into an inside joke and make it serious again within 90 minutes.
Terence Stamp gives one of the best performances I have ever seen (by turns hilarious and horrifying) as the Wilson, a British ex-con who discovers that his daughter has been killed in an "accidental death" orchestrated by a washed up sleazebag music producer played masterfully
by Peter Fonda. Luis Guzman, an ex-con who knows Wilson and who got his life straightened out, has a begrudging respect for the aging oddball thug and helps him on his mission. For once Guzman is not angry, violent criminal; he is a reformed one.
Soderbergh has the ability to take the most brutal scenes and transform them into utter comedy--when Wilson attends a party thrown by Valentine (Fonda) stands out on the producers' luxurious terrace overlooking theo cean, having repeated fantasies of simply walking in and shooting him (which he is perfectly capable of doing). Valentine tells his 400 pound bodyguard to go have a chat with Wilson. In a very quick motion seen from Fonda's perspective, Wilson headbutts the bodyguard and throws him off the terrace. He then grins goofily into the party at Fonda.
The story of Wilson's daughter Jenni is not one bit funny though. A young girl who had to watch her father go to prison (or get "banged up" numerous times as he puts it) it is really no wonder that she would get involved with a sleazebag like Valentine--another criminal. Wilson's memories of Jenni are heartbreaking but loving. The film "Memento" took more than a fair share from this movie.
Wilson is an unstoppable force. Nothing Valentine does can prevent his wrath. There is a twist at the end though that has stuck in my mind ever since, a riddle Soderbergh poses. Masterpiece.
Movie Review: Is This Really a 5-Star Movie...?
Summary: 5 Stars
Probably not, but I love it and am giving it 5 stars anyway.
This movie sets out to be a very simple narrative, a quest/revenge story, in which Wilson, an aged cockney criminal fresh from a 9-year stint "at Her Majesty's leisure," sets out to learn the truth about his estranged daughter's death in Los Angeles. Along the way, though, it becomes a thoughtful story about self-discovery, of lives lived in one direction and understood (tragically too late) in another...as all lives are.
This flick is full of great performances. Stamp is great as the cool, deliberate, and ruthless Wilson, a man who is not gratuitously violent, but not at all hesitant to use it when it suits his needs or satisfies his desire. He is a fearless--and probably foolish--criminal who has spent half his life behind bars and has become thoughtful, introspective.
Barry Newman, another hippie-era cult star (Vanishing Point, 1971), fills his supporting role as Valentine's (Peter Fonda) head of security with a snarling grittiness that contrasts with Fonda's whiney, pampered aging record producer character hilariously. Nicky Katt his equally hilarious as an idiot hitman who takes himself very seriously ("Hey, this is a lifestyle I embrace!").
I don't think this movie's non-linear editing is at all confusing. While shots from one part of the narrative are frequently inserted into scenes in another part, they make perfect sense within their "new" contexts, even if they are temporally out of place, and this editing reflects perfectly the idea that this story is one that is reflected upon, not told as it actually happens, and the realization that past actions can't help but define the present.
This movie is a treat, and worth seeing. It's a shame the DVD doesn't have any interviews or commentary, though, because I would like that access to the artists' insights into their own work.
Movie Review: A Hard, Fast Movie With A Terrific Terence Stamp
Summary: 5 Stars
When Wilson (Terence Stamp), a hard-edged working-class ex-con, gets off the flight from London to Los Angeles, you know that whoever he's looking for is going to have a tough time. Wilson is after whoever was responsible for the death of his daughter. He goes through people relentlessly and remorselessly until he finally deals with a record producer and drug dealer named Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda) and Valentine's hired protector and partner, Jim Avery (Barry Newman). Along the way he picks up a helper (Luiz Guzman) and meets a retired actress (Lesley Ann Warren) who makes him look at himself a little, but not for long.
This is a first-class movie of revenge and retribution, with smart, sharp dialogue, efficient direction and terrific performances all around, especially by Stamp. He plays an aging professional criminal, tough as they come. Stamp at 60 nails the part. There's not an ounce of fat on the guy. His eyes stare coldly. When a big, muscular thug tries to eject him from a party at the hillside home of Valentine, Wilson tosses him off the cantilevered pool to his death. When several thugs rough him up in a warehouse, make fun of his age and toss him out into the parking lot, he gets up, walks to his car, takes up a gun and walks right back. Several of the thugs get hurt.
Fonda also is very good. He plays Valentine as an amoral, self-delusional Hollywood player who is greedy and spineless. Newman is Fonda's muscle, and Newman comes across as almost as tough as Stamp.
An amusing touch is a couple of flashbacks Wilson has, thinking of his daughter when she was a baby and he was with the mother. The flashbacks are taken from a movie Stamp made in 1967. This is typical of the clever directing of Soderbergh. He has produced a movie which I hope won't be forgotten.
The Limey, in my view, is a keeper.
The DVD looks just fine