The Limey

source: The Limey

Soderbergh is a really odd director. His movies have run the gamut from the wacky, self indulgent surrealism of 'Schizopolis' to the pandering, sell-out mediocrity of 'Ellen Brockovich'. He's really hard to get a handle on. 'Out Of Sight' was stylish with an outstanding cast but left me cold. 'Traffic' featured a handful of great performances, most notably Benicio Del Toro's, but was overall simplistic, unconvincing and cliched. For my money his strongest achievements to date have been his overlooked noir-ish 'Underneath', and this, his involving revenge drama 'The Limey'. Terrence Stamp, a fine actor who has appeared in more than his fair share of bad movies, really takes this role and runs with it. He radiates dignity and power as Wilson, the English career criminal out to avenge the death of his estranged daughter. My only problem with his performance, and the movie as a whole, is his Cockney accent, which borders on caricature. If you can get over that hurdle you'll be impressed by the depth of his performance. Peter Fonda, who has never impressed me much as an actor in the past (not even his much lauded role in the overrated 'Ulee's Gold'), is also fine as the sleazy record producer who Wilson suspects of wrongdoing. Stamp and Fonda obviously relish playing these characters, and their chemistry together is the cornerstone of the movie. Both actors are supported by an impressive array of old and new faces - including a surprisingly effective Lesley Anne Warren (her best since 'Cop'), the always watchable Luis Guzman ('Boogie Nights', 'Carlito's Way', etc.), blasts from the pasts Barry Newman (cult classic 'Vanishing Point') and Joe Dallessandro (former Warhol superstar), and future star in the making Nicky Katt ('Strange Days', 'SubUrbia'). Soderbergh cleverly uses footage from Ken Loach's kitchen sink drama 'Poor Cow' for flashbacks, and plays upon Stamp and Fonda's 60s screen personas, but the film is no exercise in mere nostalgia. 'The Limey' is a rarity in Hollywood these days - an intelligent, thoughtful, well crafted and acted adult movie. I liked it a lot.

The `revenge story' is a pretty overdone plot device, so when a film comes along that employs this theme and still remains fresh and compelling, it is safe to say that is a truly good film. Steven Soderbergh's `The Limey' is able to do just that. In `The Limey', Terrence Stamp plays Wilson, a career criminal who, upon being released from prison in England, finds out that his estranged daughter has died (or perhaps been murdered) in Los Angeles. Wilson's mission is to find out what happened to her, and prescribe his own brand of justice on the man behind her death. Soderbergh's direction in `The Limey' is superb. While I enjoy and admire most of his filmography, I was so enamored with his second film, the barely-seen, highly acclaimed `Kafka' for its originality, its daring style and intellectual feel, that films like `Oceans Eleven' and `Erin Brockovich', while quite good, didn't reflect what I felt was to be his true maverick style. Seeing `The Limey', made before `Erin Brockovich' and shortly a couple of years after `Kafka', I was happy to see that he kind of held on to that spirit (for lack of a better expression) for one more film before producing more commercial fare. `The Limey' is told in a very non-linear style, and not even as clearly delineated as say, `Pulp Fiction' was; rather it is flashbacks and real-time events expressed by fluttering scenes and an almost wispy presentation. Soderbergh also employs scenes from one of Terrence Stamp's films from the 1960's for some flashbacks, a thoroughly brilliant and creative tactic. Terrence Stamp certainly deserves mention for his performance as Wilson. Whether seeing him as General Zod in `Superman II' or as the drag queen Bernadette in `The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert' he is a true badass. Watching him chase after Peter Fonda in `The Limey' was like watching a reincarnation of Yul Brunner in `Westworld'; he just never let up. Anyone who would get in his way were pretty much toast, but it was all so coldly done that it was almost clinical – just by the hard and distant expression on Wilson's face you know that all of these people were incidental and he wouldn't receive any pleasure until he comes face to face with his nemesis; and even then, it's possibly more of a duty than a pleasure. Check out this film – you won't regret it. However, if you're expecting a film with the same kind of commercial tone as say, `Oceans Eleven' you may be in for a surprise, albeit, in this viewer's opinion, a pleasant one. --Shelly

Low-key thriller/drama about an ex-con seeking revenge on the man that caused his daughters death. That's the surface of this very interesting and fascinating movie from director Soederbergh. There's more than meets the eye, and the patient viewer will be highly rewarded. This is, in my point of view, a film about all our efforts to review our own lives - i.e. trying to make memories of our past fit in with the reality of today. To try to understand all sides of an event between two people; how actions we take, and decisions we make, makes a difference in the long run in our lives. Wonderfully directed and edited, this movie is really alive, and shines with various tricks and treats of pure movie magic. The score is perfect, and the acting is great (Stamp in the lead is amazing). The way the film makers intertwine dialogue and voice over is fascinating, and reminds me of the films by French movie makers in the sixties (the French "New Wave"). Obviously not in everyone's taste since this movie is quite demanding in attention and pace, this is still one of the best films ever from director Soederbergh. Rating: 9/10.

I love this flick! Always enjoy re-viewing it. All the little camera tricks and disjointed and anachronistic shots are what make this endeavor so interesting. Also a good story, intelligently layed out and beautifully shot...with a great score and many neat little surprises and gimmicks that ADD to the story-NOT distract! Excellent cast and very realistic dialogue. A real sleeper! I really like the ending where it goes back to the 60's with the lead character singing his neat little song...I guess that is the operative word for this flick---character!! Beautiful piece!

In style, Steve Soderbergh's "The Limey" harks back to the days of freeform French, Italian and British filmmaking of the 1960's, utilizing many of the techniques that at the time were groundbreaking and innovative: the fragmentation of the time sequence, heavy reliance on jarring jumpcuts, the employment of near-subliminal quick cuts to indicate memory and anticipatory imaginings and a pronounced use of the handheld camera to generate a sense of pseudo-documentary realism. This throwback in style is more than appropriate because Soderbergh's film is drenched in a '60's sensibility, from the use of many of the stars of the period in both major and minor roles to the actual employment of scenes from 1967's "Poor Cow" to function as memories for the main character played by the star of both films, Terrance Stamp. All the above elements make "The Limey" a quite unusual and, perhaps, even unique film of sorts. But I am afraid that this over reliance on technique does come with a price: the film, as a whole, becomes much more of an "exercise" than a fully engaging narrative, partly because the visual distractions keep distancing the audience from the story and characters that should be our focus. Stamp is brilliant as the British ex-con bent on avenging the death of his daughter in the alien world of Los Angeles - and, perhaps, the sense of dislocation caused by the obtrusive cinematic stylings is meant to reflect the similar state of Wilson's mind. That still doesn't excuse the surprising banality of much of the dialogue and the less-than-stellar performances from an otherwise noteworthy cast. Peter Fonda and Barry Newman both miss the mark in their roles as a successful record producer and his loyal bodyguard. Neither their performances nor their dialogue ring true. "The Limey" seems to have more on its mind than just being a conventional crime revenge melodrama. Yet, do we really know much more about Wilson at the end of the film than at the beginning? Maybe it just becomes difficult to be greatly moved by a film that wants to be an elegy for a character we are given no real reason to admire. Thus, despite Stamp's marvelous performance and the impressive style of much of the film, "The Limey" doesn't add up to much in the long run.

In "True Lies" (1994) there's a scene in which Harry, the Arnold Schwarzenegger character, is sitting there seething as he listens to a used car dealer brag about an affair he's having with someone's wife - Harry's wife, as it happens. Finally we see Harry snap. In an act of controlled rage he flings his arm backwards and breaks the used car dealer's neck... then we cut back to the used car dealer bragging, and we realise that what we just saw was just Harry's fantasy - something that didn't really happen. Call this technique the "fantasy flash forward". (Directors or film theorists may well have their own name for it; I wouldn't know.) It's a neat idea, and I'm surprised I've never seen it used in a film older than "True Lies" - it's certainly been used many times since, although never to better effect. Steven Soderbergh uses a fantasy flash forward in "The Limey", and it manages to be an outrageous cheat, and to fall flat, at the same time. How does he pull off this remarkable double failure? By loading his film, to and beyond breaking point, with REAL flash forwards. (Some, arguably all, of the flash forwards are nested within flashbacks, or even within other flash forwards.) It's bad enough Soderbergh editing his film out of order for no particular reason, but when he gives us reason to doubt the accuracy of his footage as well ... I mean, the events are mostly too trivial for it to be worth our while believing them, let alone doubting them. Kurosawa used to say that shooting footage didn't interest him - he only did it so that he'd have something to edit. The impression this remark creates is false of Kurosawa, but true of Soderbergh; at least, it's true of the Soderbergh who made "The Limey". Watching Soderbergh in the editing suite must be like watching a child play with lego. Some of the footage he plays with comes from a film made in the 1960s, but the wonder is that he bothered to shoot any new footage at all, given his reluctance to let a shot speak for itself. In short, it's tedious. The illusion of life comes from what appear to be good performances (but how can one tell?), and the fact that it's a gangster film - make the central characters' actions illegal, and there's always a good chance the film will seem more meaningful than it is.

It was hard for me to really grasp just how contrived and unoriginal this flick was! It had absolutely NO ENERGY, the villains were third rate - my mother probably could have whipped some ass and come out an action star. As I sit here with my cigarette, just finished watching this god-awful flick, I dip into my cherrios and wonder why on earth would an English actor like Terence Stamp would sign off on movie like this? The money? The Limey was like an expanded teleplay from a television show - no particular period in mind. Just bad in every way. The heavy-handed direction left me feeling like a large foot just squashed me from above. If the director was large in other ways, he should seek out career opprotunities in other areas of show-biz. Yeah, not worth the time or effort. I want those two-hours of my life back, pronto. Cherrio.

Sodemberg in good form, while Mr. Stamp hams it up as your Stepney old china gangster giving a performance which is both deceptively simple and sophisticated with a hint of method thrown in for good measure. Peter Fonda, as the suave record producer Terry Valentine, is the perfect impersonation of a hippie growing old disgracefully and on Big Sur backdrop, reminds me of one of the Beach Boys (Brian Wilson possibly...who probably was a good mate of his in the good old days anyway) "the 60s were just like a dream with its own language and locations which didn't really exist, and then you woke up... not just the 60s really, just 66 and a little bit of 67.." showing off to his new starlet girlfriend... There is a rather moving moment toward the end of the film which brings to the fore the essential human frailty, how underneath the mask of our 'adult' certainties there is often a confused little child... And finally, if you like thrillers like myself, this movie is that rare thing, an intelligent sophisticated one, which keeps you on the edge of your seat for a couple of hours, without feeling, like unfortunately happens with a lot of similar productions, that when the credits start to roll, you have been through 120 minutes of disposable entertainment... HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Frankly, I'm amazed at how many people evidently found this a great movie. Little more than an egofest for Stamp and Fonda, this film is pretentiously filmed and very poorly acted, with a paper-thin plot and precious little to hold the attention. Stamp is dreadful, rendering an angsty performance of little credulity. The "stylish" direction becomes irritating and vaccuous given the sparsity of the plot and the poor acting. The movie goes nowhere, either - if you make it through to the ending, there's nothing to reward you. Ultimately, this movie serves almost exclusively as a vehicle for Fonda and most particularly for Stamp - the rather irrelevantly interspersed footage of him as a young man does nothing except remind us both of how good looking he used to be (the film's objective) and of how daft he seems now (not the film's objective). Don't be fooled - "stylish" direction and pretentious nonsense does not make this a good movie. Avoid.