The Limey
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Movie Reviews of The Limey
Movie Review: Disappointing Conclusion to Fabulous Movie.
Summary: 4 Stars
First of all, I'll say that I found the climax of the film a bit of a let-down. Oh, it was clever, but not in a particularly believable way, it was all a bit convenient the way people kept turning up. But never mind; the build-up was so flawless, Soderberg's direction so stylish, and the central performances so convincing, that it's really barely worth grumbling. The editing was mainly to thank for the effective increase in tension. Scenes from all over the time line of the story were spliced together with no explanation as to where they fit in. This could be potentially irritating and confusing, but Soderberg proves, as he did again with Traffic, that he is fully capable of keeping track of different aspects of the same story through colour and light. So the story flashes backwards several years and forwards several days without disrupting the narrative flow.Peter Fonda and Luiz Guzman are both very good, but the film belongs completely to Terrence Stamp. He keeps the audience hanging off of his every ground out word, and his face, even, or rather especially in repose has endless emotion lingering in it. Best of all, the flashbacks are actually scenes from a film much earlier in Stamp's career, so while the young man does not particularly resemble the older one, the patterns of speech and the movements of the face are the same. This, like The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, is a classic Terrence Stamp performance, and the film is a credit to both him and Soderberg.
Movie Review: Mean and Worthy
Summary: 5 Stars
The Limey is probably Soderberghs best work, it bests Traffic and Erin Brockovich easily, only Out of Sight and Sex, Lies, and Videotape are close. The Limey is one of the only movies I've seen where the stylistic chances the movie takes make the movie not just some self-indulgent art piece to be debated in film classes, but a poignant film that resonates and stays with you. Terence Stamp plays the main character Wilson as a tough sad English criminal that is trying to find out what happened to his daughter. His quest has genre underpinnings, but this movie rises above any genre label. A lot of credit has to go to Lem Dobbs script which sidesteps cliche and injects some worthwhile comedy into the mix. But the editing style of this movie is why I love it, it works in waves like memorys, its the only movie I've seen that accurately shows how your mind can shift from one thing to another. Right about now, I'm sounding like some chin-stroking art student hopped up on his own self-importance. But watch the movie and you'll see what I mean. The best part of this movie is that it is sad, the ending isn't a huge twist or some copout, its just profoundly sad, and there aren't many movies that evoke that feeling in me today. I'm done.Movie Review: The Worst Acting - The Worst Directing - The Worst Movie
Summary: 1 Stars
Alright I am going to make this very quick. This movie is absolutly horrible. I normally dont take the time to write the reviews, but I had to let someone know. Although the actors and directors are both good they do not pull it off at all. The script is riduculus and the plot is a joke. Whatever you do never ever ever even think about this movie. I feel like the buck I spent renting it was the biggest waste of money ever. I would have had a much better time throwing the money in the trash. Oh yea the ending of this film horrible. Okay well there is one way someone could justify buying this movie - If they needed something to burn to keep warm at night. Actually as much as this movie bites I dont even think that would work! If anyone agrees please write and say so. Movies like this should not be on the self - they should be in the trash.P.S. - Peter Fonda stains his Easy Rider legacy with this film
Movie Review: hit him again
Summary: 5 Stars
The first, and more obvious, reason to consider this a conservative film is that the basic plot structure is built around the notion that if you plop a principled man--the limey and ex-con, Wilson (Terrence Stamp)--down in the midst of unprincipled men--drug-dealing Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda)
and his henchmen--it is the man of principle who is most dangerous because he will keep moving forward inexorably until his principles are
vindicated. Admittedly, the values that Wilson adheres to may not be right out of the classic Judeo-Christian playbook, but he does nonetheless have
a strict and uncompromising set of rules that govern his life, among which are the necessity to wreak vengeance on the men who killed his daughter.
Meanwhile, for Valentine and company, there are no behavioral standards, no morals to be followed; all is negotiable and nothing else matters but
your own survival. It is a sad commentary on the state of American culture that the filmmakers felt it necessary to make Wilson so overtly alien (not
just British, which we fawningly associate with higher standards in all things, but lower-class British so that his accent and vocabulary make him
even more of a fish out of water). When a DEA agent says to Wilson, "You're not from around here, are you?", he is presumably referring not just to
his national origin but also to how different he is from the laid-back Californians amongst whom he's now operating. Wilson's savage morality is
sadly just as foreign to us as is his Cockney slang.
The other aspect of the movie that makes it particularly conservative is the way in which Peter Fonda's character references the character he played in
Easy Rider (1969). Stamp is clearly supposed to be portraying an older version of the character he played in Poor Cow (1967), to the point where
director Soderbergh even uses film clips from that earlier role. But not many of us will ever have seen that film. Easy Rider, on the other hand, is a
touchstone of 60s culture and a key to understanding the era. Fonda and Dennis Hopper are counterculture antiheroes, riding around on their
motorcycles in search of America. Along the way they find drugs, hippies, mimes, Jack Nicholson, cops, etc. And in the famous ending of the film
America finally catches up to them, as a pickup full of rednecks shotguns Fonda and Hopper right off of their bikes. In many ways the finale drew a
line across the culture, and whether you rooted for the bikers or the truckers defined which side of the line you were on. As the 1968 election and
1972 re-election of the loathsome but "law-and-order" Richard Nixon demonstrated to the Left's chagrin, most of us were rooting for the guys with
shotguns.
Since Fonda's character presumably died at the end of Easy Rider, he's not explicitly playing the same character in The Limey. But it's easy to
imagine that this is what that biker (like so many of his generation) would have turned into--ammoral, self-absorbed, faux spiritual, cashing in on
both the music of the 60s (he's a record producer) and the drugs (gone is any pretense that they'll bring enlightenment; they're just easy money). As
Fonda preens around the screen with his fake tan, his over white teeth, and his vapid young girlfriend; moving between his ostentatious LA canyon
home and his Big Sur bungalow; mouthing inanities about the meaning of the 60s; any conservative who's worth his salt will be salivating at the
prospect of watching him get whacked again.
Movie Review: Style Chosen Over Content
Summary: 4 Stars
Terence Stamp is a very appealing actor with a presence unlike any other. The first time I ever saw him was in a 1969 Poe film directed by Fellini called "Toby Dammit"(Spirits of the Dead). Since then I have seen him in various European films but one of his best performances was in an early eighties Stephen Frears movie The Hit where he played a gangster hiding in Spain and John Hurt was the assassin sent to find him (and a very young Tim Roth as assassins apprentice). Soderbergh's The Limey is reminiscent of that movie in that both make use of Stamps mysterious almost otherworldy nature. I like some things about The Limey like the opening number with Who playing The Seeker while Wilson(Stamps character)leaves the airport & I like Valentines(Fonda) mansion. Both these characters(and the actors that play them) are relics of the sixties and so there is a strong nostalgia thing going on. Soderbergh lays it on too thick though. The passages where we glimpse Wilson in flashback have been praised by some but I don't think the use of the old Stamp film Poor Cow adds any content to the film. It just looks like a home movie and apparently Soderbergh likes that, the look of it I fear is good enough for Soderbergh. Stamps character is looking back at a life wasted but its just so vague, those glimpses into his past are just people at parties smiling and laughing and being young. The flash forwards are kind of annoying and once again it seems style is Soderberghs motivation and his driving rationale. Stamp never becomes more than an image, a visual for the camera to play tricks with. The story is good or could have been good but the constant time shuffling and all the busy visuals prove just to distract from what we really want, some content. At the end I didn't feel like I really knew Wilson any better than I did in the beginning. Stamp remains a kind of ghost whose only interaction with the present tense is through moments of violence. Fondas character is also just a visual, never really flushed out. His characters roots are in the music business of the sixties and he attaches himself to young girls supposedly to remain eternally young. But he's also supposed to be running a major smuggling ring. His character just doesn't seem to have it in him. I think Soderbergh spent far too much time establishing a visual dossier for his characters and far too little on their actual substance. Tarantino is much better at finding a balance between striking visuals and character content. Tarantino is a writer first and a visual stylist second. Soderbergh would do better with less style and more script.