The Limey
|
Our Price: $9.98 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $0.90 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Limey
Movie Review: Terrence Stamp is AMAZING!
Summary: 3 Stars
First things first: Without Terrence Stamp, The Limey wouldn't have really been as enjoyable. He manages to convey a sense of barely controlled rage and menace as Wilson, a small-time career theif, who has been in & out of prison since his teens. He's just been released from a 9-Year stretch (For robbing the Box-Office at a Pink Floyd concert....), and he's in L.A., looking for the man he holds responsible for the death of his Daughter (The LOVELY Melissa George, who manages to be likeable even though she has no dialogue and appears only in flashback....). Peter Fonda is likewise excellent as Terry Valentine, a sleazy, mobbed-up Record Exec.; The movie relentlessly builds to the inevetable confrontation between the two, and director Soderbergh & Writer Lem Dobbs throw in some great incidental characters along the way, played by wonderful character actors, such as Luis Guzman, Nicky Katt, and Bill Duke. I subtracted a few stars because I really didn't care for the ending, but the magnificent performance by Stamp, as an aging hood who spews out Cockney Rhyming-Slang, makes the film....How did he not get an Oscar for this part? Props to Soderbergh for using footage from "Poor Cow" as flashbacks for Stamp's character. The disc has some cool extras, and crime flick fans will find a LOT to enjoy in this film.
Movie Review: Low budget movie is smashing thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
The Limey, a dazzling little thriller, is the kind of movie that slips through the cracks during its theatrical run. These movies tend to be not quite mainstream enough for distributors to deal with through their slick, "one size fits all" publicity departments. Sometimes, these smaller films do well on video, and I hope The Limey turns out to be one of them. The Limey is in the style of the classic Hollywood thriller. It's fast-paced, full of odd characters, edited down to bare-bones essentials, and realistic only in that it fits in with a world created by and for the movies. Part of the enjoyment of this kind of film is that the viewer knows what they are seeing has little resemblance to his or her world. If this weren't so, then what we see would hit too close to home and would make us squirm.
The lead character, Wilson, is played by veteran British actor Terence Stamp, who started out 1960s as a sex symbol who could act. Stamp seems to have had little interest in commercial roles. As time went on, he became a character actor, and it's great to see him once more with a big role. Wilson is a professional thief who has just been released from an English prison, where he spent a number of years. His incarceration caused him to miss seeing his daughter grow up. He is distraught when he learns the young woman has been killed in an automobile accident in Los Angeles. Perhaps out of guilt, he flies to California. Once there, he quickly learns that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the accident. He becomes suspicious and tries to learn more about Valentine, her mysterious boyfriend. The more the truth is hidden from him, the more he is willing to use any method, including violence, to find it.
There are some drawbacks to the storyline, but they are ones typical of the genre. In particular, the body count is absurdly high. In real life, there would be police detectives and SWAT teams everywhere. The Drug Enforcement Agency is, as usual, portrayed as a group of guys whose morals are no better than the criminals they pursue. On the plus side, the characterizations are well defined, and the events that motivate the characters are clear and fairly logical.
The movie poses some interesting questions. How far should you go in avenging the death of a child? Would your anger be increased if you were guilt-ridden because you were never there for her? Does revenge ever bring satisfaction? Above all, though, this is a thriller. It is almost all action, but, because of the questions it poses and its intriguing plot, The Limey proves entertaining to more than just hard-core action fans.
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 Guzm?n -- 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: Soderbergh fans beware!
Summary: 1 Stars
First of all, I should describe the circumstances surrounding my purchase of this DVD. As a big fan of "Out Of Sight", and having read top-notch reviews of "The Limey," it seemed like a great addition to my shopping basket, to spread the shipping costs a little thinner. Don't fall into the same trap I did! Watch this film before you buy the DVD. You might be surprised.Terence Stamp stars as Wilson, a cockney ex-con who travels to LA to discover the truth behind his daughter's death. In true "Columbo" style, he quickly realised that Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), his daughter's boyfriend, holds the answers. Stylistically, this is an interesting movie. The trademark Soderbergh non-linearity is present, to great effect, and Luis Guzman turns in a typically high quality performance as Wilson's sidekick. A spooky score combines to give the movie a slightly disturbing quality that should make it a moody, stylish film.
However, when will Soderbergh understand that just because someone has a cockney accent doesn't mean that they have to rattle off rhyming slang all the time? He patronises his fellow Americans terribly by having Wilson translate every phrase for the audience. It's enough that Stamp uses a palpable London accent and obvious colloquialisms throughout the film, and that Guzman constantly comments that Wilson's drawl as unintelligible. Need we endure further embarrassment? As an Englishman myself, I can say that I have rarely seen a less convincing portrayal of one of my fellow countrymen, other than possibly Vinnie Jones's character in "Swordfish".
Further, an example of the script's flaws is that Wilson uses the phrase "you wrote me" on several occasions. An Englishman would say, "you wrote TO me". Is Wilson is catering for the Americans with whom he is conversing, (in which case wouldn't he also realise that they wouldn't understand rhyming slang)? Or is he exhibiting his character as a flawed and inconsistent one? Another point is that he talks so slowly (why?) that he sounds as if he suffered a 90% lobotomy whilst at "Her Majesty's pleasure"!
Rule One:
Cockney slang is an eccentric tradition, and charming in its own way, but if it needs explaining in as much depth as Soderbergh does here then it's not worth inclusion.
Rule Two:
Hire a leading man who can act.
Rule Three:
Hire some continuity staff that have some idea about dialectic issues across the globe.
Unfortunately it looks like Soderbergh will fall into the same traps time and again, as is exhibited by the recent "Ocean's Eleven". Not content with having Don Cheadle among the cast, one of the coolest actors working today, he makes him English too. Thankfully Cheadle only explains his rhyming slang once, or I might have walked out of the theatre!
Also unfortunately the story is incredibly boring. If this was a vanity project, then may I recommend that all mirrors in the near vicinity of the director's trailer be removed on future films?
Never write for an Englishman again Steven, it doesn't wash.
Movie Review: Worth watching
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie is an interesting character study. (warning: possible spoilers) The main character is in search of his daughter's killer. In the end, he discovers the truth about himself and how he has affected his daughter with whom he has hardly spent any time. Watching the main character, I found myself asking "who is this guy?" He kills people, but shows restraint and disernment. He also manages to keep from being caught. The surround sound was powerful in its minimalism. It was not overused, so when the subwoofer kicks in at particularly violent moments, you can really feel it. There are some good music tracks that surround nicely. The movie, in the end, has that rainy-day "so this is how it is" feel to it. Like I said, it is worth watching at least once. Not worth buying, in my opinion