The Limey (1999)
Country: US
Technical: col 89m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Barry Newman, Luis Guzmán
Synopsis:
A Cockney criminal flies to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter in a car accident. His trail leads to a rock impresario with crooked connections.
Review:
Similar - too similar not to be intentional - in scenario to Get Carter (qv.) and using footage from Loach's Poor Cow, this is not the conventional vendetta it sounds. Nor is it the flawed homage Kafka (qv.) was. Soderbergh continues to play with time as he did in Out of Sight, but he also films whole dialogue sequences in an editing style of Proust-like complexity, adding layers of visual information over mere words. Key shots are introduced long before their relevance is clear, others reprised. It is a terse package for all its meditative quality, and it avoids the pay-offs typical of the genre (violence happens out of view, poignant farewells are visual flashbacks). Stamp's performance, however, borders uneasily on parody in his accent - he obligingly translates rhyming slang for the locals - but his mixture of loss and shared guilt is eloquently conveyed.
Country: US
Technical: col 89m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Barry Newman, Luis Guzmán
Synopsis:
A Cockney criminal flies to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter in a car accident. His trail leads to a rock impresario with crooked connections.
Review:
Similar - too similar not to be intentional - in scenario to Get Carter (qv.) and using footage from Loach's Poor Cow, this is not the conventional vendetta it sounds. Nor is it the flawed homage Kafka (qv.) was. Soderbergh continues to play with time as he did in Out of Sight, but he also films whole dialogue sequences in an editing style of Proust-like complexity, adding layers of visual information over mere words. Key shots are introduced long before their relevance is clear, others reprised. It is a terse package for all its meditative quality, and it avoids the pay-offs typical of the genre (violence happens out of view, poignant farewells are visual flashbacks). Stamp's performance, however, borders uneasily on parody in his accent - he obligingly translates rhyming slang for the locals - but his mixture of loss and shared guilt is eloquently conveyed.
Country: US
Technical: col 89m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Barry Newman, Luis Guzmán
Synopsis:
A Cockney criminal flies to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter in a car accident. His trail leads to a rock impresario with crooked connections.
Review:
Similar - too similar not to be intentional - in scenario to Get Carter (qv.) and using footage from Loach's Poor Cow, this is not the conventional vendetta it sounds. Nor is it the flawed homage Kafka (qv.) was. Soderbergh continues to play with time as he did in Out of Sight, but he also films whole dialogue sequences in an editing style of Proust-like complexity, adding layers of visual information over mere words. Key shots are introduced long before their relevance is clear, others reprised. It is a terse package for all its meditative quality, and it avoids the pay-offs typical of the genre (violence happens out of view, poignant farewells are visual flashbacks). Stamp's performance, however, borders uneasily on parody in his accent - he obligingly translates rhyming slang for the locals - but his mixture of loss and shared guilt is eloquently conveyed.