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Rating:  -
This flick shows us why people say "they don't make movies like they used to." The acting by Hoskins and Mirren in this film is superb, as well as the plot line. The soundtrack is great. I'm amazed this film isn't more widely known, but no matter. The Long Good Friday is the business.
Rating:  -
Seeing this one again brings back fond memories. An London crime boss is at the zenith of his influence & power when various events rise up and challenge his kingdom... who is responsible and who would dare challenge the undisputed boss in this way? While the conclusion isn't as satisfying as it might be, it was fun to see a young Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren tackle the gritty crime genre so early in their respective careers (1980). Look out too for a very young Pierce Brosnan as the gay pool boy.
Rating: -
This film, together with Get Carter (the original) are the two finest British crime/gangster films you can get.
Bob Hoskins gives his best ever performance as Harold Shand a cockney gangster whos trying to do a deal with an American over the (as was then) wasteland of London docklands. Unfortunately while he's in the states one of his gang has upset some rather nasty people. Upon his return things start to go badly wrong.
This film is full of great scenes - perhaps most memorably when the men Harold suspects are trying to muscle in on him are brought in hanging upsidedown from meathooks - Harold has a quiet word:
"For more than ten years there's been peace - everyone to his own patch. We've all had it sweet. I've done every single one of you favours in the past - I've put money in all your pockets. I've treated you well, even when you was out of order, right? Well now there's been an eruption. It's like f**kin' Belfast on a bad night. One of my closest friends is lyin' out there in the freezer. And believe me, all of you, nobody goes home until I find out who done it, and why".
Its all marvellously done, and the ending is very clever indeed - you will never forget it once you've seen it. The whole film is complimented by excellent music composed by Francis Monkman (who played with Curved Air and Sky).
Helen Mirren gives a great peformance as Harolds wife/girlfriend. The cast includes quite a few familiar faces such as Eddie Constantine and P H Moriarty as 'Razors'. The most noteable is a small role for the as then unknown Pierce Brosnan.
This film is also an interesting piece of British history as you can see docklands as it was before before Canary Wharf existed.
If you haven't already seen this, then you've missed a really cracking film.
Rating: -
"The Long Good Friday," (1980), made from an original script by Barrie Keefe, starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren, directed by John Mackenzie, makes just about everyone's short list of greatest British gangster movies. In fact, greatest gangster movies, period. It was nominated for a BAFTA (British Oscar) on its release. Gangster movies are said to depend on the energy and performance of their protagonists -- see George Raft, Jimmy Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson-- and this one made a star of Hoskins, who captured the explosive violence of its protagonist Harold Shand, a cockney gangster.
The late George Harrison, of The Beatles, served, among others, as the film's Executive Producer. The film opens on Good Friday, and is, in fact, full of Easter imagery. Shand's mother goes to mass; and scenes set in a slaughterhouse and a warehouse present specifically Christian iconography. "The Long Good Friday" is also set at a significant time, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's own Euro version of the greed-is-good 1980's. In fact, at moments, it almost seems the film is quoting Dante Aleghieri's famous Italian Renaissance poem "The Inferno," that also is set at Easter, and concerns the greed is good crowd of its own time and place. At any rate, the film makes good use of its era, as Michael Caine's memorable "Get Carter" did of Britain's sourly swinging 1970's.
Shand appears to be on the top of the world as the film opens. During Thatcher's reign, London's extensive docklands are just beginning to be profitably redeveloped, and he's getting in on the ground floor. He expects to get additional seed money for his projects from Charlie, a visiting American gangster, nicely played by that iconic French actor Eddie Constantine. Shand's got a gorgeous, upper crust, tough, sexy, smart mistress, Victoria; as played by Helen Mirren, nobody could doubt that she has her say in his organization. But while he's in the States, hooking up with Charlie, things begin to go wrong for him. And it takes him too long to figure out what's happening.
Pierce Brosnan, then evidently at the start of his career, has a bit, nearly non-speaking part: apparently he improvised one line, and it stuck. But he plays a bare-chested pool scene, showing off a fine body, and a charming smile, but, oh, those terrible not-yet-improved-to-American standards teeth! And he drives the car in the movie's gripping final scenes. Hoskins and Mirren give remarkable performances, together and on their own, never more so than these final, almost wordless scenes together. You're not going to find them easy to forget.
Rating: -
Watching this again after several years is like experiencing an episode of Life On Mars, only vastly superior. No need for flashbacks as we're actually there: with the clothes, the cars, the non-PC language and an undeveloped London Docklands. A time when gangsters had (supposedly) strict rules of behaviour and decency, and worked with corrupt police officials with little danger of media exposure. And although this is a violent, fairly realistic film, it all has a strange feeling of innocence about it. If only they knew what was around the corner!
Add to this Barrie Keeffe's marvellous script, lots of dry humour (it's almost a black comedy), Bob Hoskin's loveable villain, Helen Mirren as his upper class moll, and early appearances from Pierce Brosnan (hardly speaking, but wonderfully nasty), Gillian Taylforth and Eddie Constantine - and you have 109 minutes of pure pleasure. A lingering final sequence will stay in your memory. Unreservedly recommended.
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