The Limey
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Movie Reviews of The Limey
Movie Review: SODERBERGH'S FINAL INDIE HOORAH
Summary: 5 Stars
How my ratings work:
5 - I really liked/loved it
4 - I liked it
3 - Could've been better/worth a look
2 - Just didn't live up to the potential
1 - Simply aweful
This was Steven Soderbergh's last Indie Hoorah before he becam the Oscar winning director of Traffic. I absolutley love this movie. Terrence Stamp gives on of the best performances of his movie career as Wilson a career criminal who comes to America to avenge his dead daughter. The entire cast is exellent, and I love the editing trick (particularly splicing in clips from Sstamp's first movie, Poor Cow, in flashback scenes). Peter Fonda is just as great as Valentine, the sleazy record producer. This is a definate must see for film buffs.
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.
Movie Review: I loved it , great to see Terence Stamp starring again
Summary: 5 Stars
This film owes so much to the wonderfully intense performance of Terence Stamp . I don't know why he doesn't get more work . Only now after seeing a film like POINT BLANK do I notice the original influence . This is a revenge film but you cannot wait to see how it happens .
The film has an 'arty non linear' storytelling style , but is easy to follow . The film is set in sunny California , which seems to make things more sinister somehow .
I recommend this film and also another one like it , but set in 70's England called GET CARTER , which stars Michael Caine .
Both DVD's have good special features , which include the lead actors speaking in the commentaries .
For the price , you cannot go wrong .
You may find it hard to believe the same director that made this was behind the remake of OCEAN'S ELEVEN , but it's true .
If you like it , do pick up the POINT BLANK DVD as well .
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: My name's . . . Wilson
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the finest crime dramas of recent years. Harkening back to another great film, 1971's Get Carter, Terrance Stamp plays an ex-con, Wilson, who has comes to America to discover the causes of his daughter's death. I found this a great film for many reasons:
Steven Soderbergh's direction was fascinating. He plays with time and images in a very interesting way, mixing up sharp close ups and long shots done out of time (some in flashback, some looking into the future). While this smacks hard of arty/indi filmmaking, I think with this film it really worked to tremendous advantage. There are several shots of Terrance Stamp in extreme close-up, focusing on his strange, pale blue eyes, while sun and shadow play across his face. I found these shots oddly moving, and after a second viewing I figured out why: in these shots the sunlight passes over his face like the rising and falling of the sun - like the passing of time. Soderbergh's direction is very tight throughout, and his shot selection is always excellent.
I love the casting of this movie. Terrance Stamp could not have been better, cast as Wilson, the cockney career criminal that has come to the plastic world of California looking for some very hard answers. His Wilson is a once-in-a-career creation, much like Clint Eastwood's, William Munny from The Unforgiven. Stamp really makes Wilson jump right off the screen in every scene he is in. Several good to great actors find their finest moments on film here, always playing against type. For once Lesley Ann Warren is NOT a bubble-headed sex starved vixen, but instead a woman with depth and intelligence. For once Luiz Guzman is NOT a slightly comic, second banana bad-guy Hispanic but instead a decent, complex man that proves his metal during the course of the film.
Peter Fonda plays a music mogul named Valentine with a heart of corruption beyond his melancholy reminisces of the 60's (who, in an offhand moment, explains the 60's perfectly in about 5 or 6 lines of dialogue). Barry Newman seems to come out of nowhere with a pitch perfect performance as a suave head of security for the Valentine empire.
Finally, watch for the two-man hit team of Nicky Katt and Joe Dallesandro, who are hired to kill Stamp. Nicky Katt gives a real, real creepy performance, nearly worth the price of admission by itself, and it was just great to see Dallesandro mixing it up again (Dallesandro comes out of the Andy Warhol factory and was Warhol's beefcake boy in several of his movies).
All in all, a film that will easily stand up to repeat viewings.
This is one you should have in your collection.