The Long Good Friday (1982)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Please don't spend money on this.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Years before the flashy show-off antics of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS came along, The Long Good Friday showed everyone how it was done - this classic movie easily beats GET CARTER into the top spot of "best British gangster movie ever made". Set over the course of a gruelling 48 hours, The Long Good Friday is an often tense, theatrical, and suspenseful thriller with an unusual plot - gangster Harold must turn detective, using his unorthodox methods, to discover who is responsible for a sudden campaign of violence against him. His methods include slashing up a well-known grass, hanging up suspects in an abattoir along with the carcasses, and committing unreasonable violence to all and sundry. The gangster is played by the one and only Bob Hoskins.Now, I know a lot of people will not be convinced by the authenticity of Hoskins - probably best known to American audiences for his role in WHO KILLED ROGER RABBIT? - playing an East End gangster, but his role is a tour de force here and one he has not matched since. Hoskins creates a violent and unpleasant little man, but is never anything less than likable throughout - you come to sympathise with, and care for his character. Hoskins' superb acting - especially the well-remembered ending in the taxi, where he goes through 360 degrees of emotions using his facial expressions only - is something to behold and holds the film together throughout. On top of this, the excellent cast includes Helen Mirren as his long-suffering wife, a good supporting role from Derek Thompson (BBC1's mild-manned "Charlie" in CASUALTY) who is involved in the film's nastiest scene worthy of a video nasty, P.H. Moriarty as the imposing right-hand man Razors, and a cast seemingly populated by actors and actresses that would go on to achieve fame in later years (Gillian Taylforth, Dexter Fletcher, Paul Barber, Pierce Brosnan).The movie has some spectacular set-pieces, usually involving exploding buildings which come as big surprises, as well as my favourite unexpected moment when two men are gunned out of a glass window on to a race track below. For the most part, the film is a detective story with tons of tension as time ticks down, and you can't keep your eyes off the screen. The last half an hour gives the opportunity for Hoskins to become king of the world, but you know it won't be long before it all comes crashing down for the offbeat and daring conclusion. A true classic, worth watching by all and sundry, this has a superb script full of genuinely witty humour, and a story and characters epic enough to make it feel like a Shakespearian tragedy.

The Brits are known for producing a large variety of different movies and different genres. The gangster movie, generally, is not one of them - at least from the 1950s through to the 1970s. There are standout exceptions, of course: Robbery (1967); The Italian Job (1969) - a spoof actually; the incomparable Get Carter (1971), and a few others. But not until this offering, TLGF, did the tone of English gangster movie move up a notch - or a few, in fact.There are a number of reasons why I say this, the first being the charismatic presence of Bob Hoskins - who'd appeared mostly in TV up till 1980 - as Harold Shand, a gangster who fronts as a kingpin business mogul in the London docklands; and who also controls most of the many criminal elements in and around London. Hoskins is on camera in most scenes and for most of the time. And he makes sure everybody knows it: moving from unctuous affability to mercurial madness in a nanosecond, Hoskins brings the character of Shand to a level of simmering violence not seen, I suggest, since James Cagney blazed his way through gangster movies of the thirties, forties and fifties.London, in the nineteen-eighties, was on the cusp of a boom - no pun intended - and dear Harold wanted all of it, if he could swing it. But this time with the money and prestige of enticing the American mafia into his enterprises, and offering his American friends - a bland, humorless duo - a gateway into Europe. You see, Harold figured he was just doing his bit for The Common Market anyway while he lined his own pockets and those of his friends.... But, when his sparkling Rolls-Royce goes BOOM! to bits early on Good Friday afternoon and, in the early evening, his favorite restaurant also follows suit with an even bigger BOOM!, bloody Harold figured there was something rotten in London that he had to fix. Trouble was - he'd didn't have a clue who had it in for him. Which sets him off, with his gang of bully boys, to wreak bloody havoc and mayhem upon the usual suspects; or so Harold thinks. And that's the second reason why this movie is up a notch: with Harold trying to out-mafia his Mafia friends with his brand of gruesome methods.Unhappily for Harold, he makes a hash of it all, and is still in the dark. Until he gets a lucky break and finds out the IRA is the culprit. So who needs that sort of 'lucky break'? Certainly not London, and definitely not Harold. And that's the third reason why this production moves up another notch: gangsters never mess with the IRA.Except Harold, he thinks. As a business man, he figures he can negotiate his way out of this quandary, even as his Mafia contacts pull up stakes and s*d off back to USA - "Good riddance," says our Harold, "don't need you, any way" - leaving him to deal with Irish, a task with which even the British government was experiencing much difficulty at that very time.And so ... I'll leave you to see how that deal turns out....Assisting Harold is, first, his partner-in-crime and blonde moll, Victoria (Mirren), followed by a collection of unsavory Londoner toughs, headed by one with the sinister name of Razors (P.H. Moriarty), Harold's nasty enforcer. For good measure, throw in a corrupt member, Parky (King), of the local constabulary who keeps Harold informed, if you catch my drift. In truth, the entire cast is simply perfect for the job. Nor did I see much to fault with the photography, editing and special effects.Finally, watch particularly for a young Pierce Brosnan as he coolly dispatches Harold's old friend Colin (Freeman) early on; and much later, when he confronts Harold, with his icy-cold eyes, steady hand, silencer and pistol.And, for those who pay attention to music soundtrack, this production has a jazz main theme which is simply super. Not recommended for children. Award this excellent thriller eight out of ten. May 28, 2016

British gangster movies can be a little predictable. What keeps them alive is how well the lead is and how interesting the plot unfolds. This film accomplishes both excellently. This is one of the rare movies where you learn what's the major issue along with the main character and this is a good 45 minutes into it at least.The film opens with a lengthy sequence of scenes strung together by Francis Monkman's excellent score. While no one is speaking, you are following things because they are moving quickly. These events are not explained to us though. We simply see them. I won't describe them except to say, it's this sequence that the viewer learns the meaning of along with Bob Hoskins' Harold Shand who is introduced immediately following it.Shand arrives home from an undisclosed location but you can assume it wherever he was, it was a major success for him and his organization. He has plans to expand his organization but he needs further financial assistance by American gangsters who he meets on Good Friday. Without knowing anything about what's happening, people in his employ are being brutally murdered. He launches an investigation and needless to say, things are a surprise to him.What makes this film interesting is Bob Hoskins' portrayal of Harold Shand. You learn all about the type of man he is, the type of character he always had and most importantly, how he got to be as powerful as he became. You learn the value of Helen Mirren's Victoria (Shand's wife). If nothing else, she stabilizes his inner reactionary rage. I imagine Shand fell back on her channeling him more than a few times in order to get to where he is in the story.The story is somewhat dated but it's dated like the movie War Games was. The then news headlines played a heavy role in the events in the story. In War Games it was the panic of an all out nuclear war between the US and USSR many were assuming was inevitable in the early 80's. In The Long Good Friday, it was something else entirely but no less important to what the landscape of London looked like in the late 70's and early 80's A young Pierce Brosnan has a dialog free role but no less important to the story. Paul Freeman also has no spoken word role in the story but he also is vital to how the story unfolds.On the whole, this is a movie that comes off as an experiment that really works well. All of the aspects of a good crime/action movie are here but they are presented in a different way, with a different story and with explosive, at times highly disturbing results. Truly worth seeing.

This wasn't quite the classic noir gangster film I was hoping it was going to be, but it's certainly worth a view if you're into that sort of thing (I am).For the positives you have a solid cast, led by Hoskins and Mirren. I didn't quite buy Hoskins in a couple of the early scenes (notably the Hands Across the Pond speech and his first big scene with his assembled cronies) but the totality of the performance is very compelling, especially his ill-fated outro. Mirren is great as the only deft and clever (and sexy) member of his entourage.The dialogue--the bits of it I could understand of it anyway--was well-written, and that's always appreciated.The movie also sported some great, lived-in locations that gives the movie a bit of scummy charm that would have been overly glossed if made today.For the negatives you are pretty much stuck with a rather clueless and boorish main character whose redeeming qualities are few and far between. Good person? No. Good gangster? No. Good protagonist? Debatable. I found it really hard to care about Shand and his tribulations or his inevitable downfall. The last scene would have been killer if I gave a crap (I did not) and how that scene works for you is probably the litmus test for the whole movie.Though, to be fair, Harold Shand is a cuddly teddy bear next to twitchy psycho Tony Montana, mad-dog psycho sexy beast Don Logan, and the not-psycho but still a serial murderer from Get Carter (I forget his name).The pacing is also a little slow. The first 2/3 has too many befuddled gangster scenes and not enough tension. The last 1/3 is all "wake me when Hoskins buys it". My attention wandered in a couple of scenes and it really could have been trimmed by 10 minutes or so.Still there's enough compelling content for a look, especially if you're a fan of Hoskins, Mirren, gangsters, or shady urban-renewal projects.