The Limey (1999)

The toughest gangsters around are the ones you mostly can’t understand at all.

Wilson (Terence Stamp), a tough English ex-con travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter’s death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine (Peter Fonda) and an army of L.A.’s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened.

With Steven Soderbergh, there’ no such things such as conventions or formula. Take, for example, Haywire; what seems to be a pretty self-explanatory, straight-forward thriller, is played to the tunes of jazz music throughout, features barely any score music at all, and doesn’t cut-away once from the major beat-downs that occur in that film. The same could almost be said for Magic Mike, which was essentially a steamy sex film, that features a cold story and three-dimensional characters. Basically, Soderbergh plays with genre and doesn’t care what sort of rules he’s breaking.

What a view. Damn L.A.

Cause what’s the point of having rules if they aren’t meant to be broken in the first place, eh?

And like with mostly all of his flicks, the Limey isn’t just about switching things up, but being pretty cool while doing so, too. It’s a noir in the sense that it’s a deep, dark, and gritty tale about some mean, ugly people, but it’s also a revenge-tale that doesn’t always give you the most perfect idea of what it’s going to do next. Soderbergh shoots things here in a certain way, whether in an odd camera-angle, or somewhere off-to-the-side like you’ve never seen before, that makes you wonder what he’s going to come up with next. He doesn’t over-do it, either, and it can sometimes feel like he’s meshing what sorts of style bits and pieces he wants to, in order to make a sort of easy story, hit a lot harder.

And deep down inside, it really is a tale about a father trying to ask for forgiveness and wonder about what he missed out on. Speaking of Terence Stamp, this guy absolutely nails it as Wilson, the guy who we never, ever get to really know that well but for some reason, we don’t feel as if we have to, we just got to watch him. Stamp is a guy who always just sits in the background, let everybody else in front of him kick some ass, and then come in out of nowhere, steal a scene or two, and just walk off as if he was the leading man they were waiting for the whole time. The difference here, is that he is the leading man and he shows that he has all the right skills to pull that off as well. Even though he may not physically fit to pull of a scary-ass crook that would kill you the first chance he got, Stamp still makes up for that with the look on his eyes and the steps in his walk. This guy has got a mean-looking face that makes many people shiver in their beds, and when you watch him put those mean, old eyes on somebody here, you know something bad is about to go down.

Somehow, can totally see these two being the best of buddies.

A shame that Stamp doesn’t get anymore starring roles like this, but at least he still shows up from time-to-time and still steals every show.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Peter Fonda as the ex-hippie, record producer, named Valentine who seems like a gentle dude, that just mixed up in all of the wrong things. Fonda doesn’t play this guy like your typical, evil villain that just goes around with an evil ‘stache, twirling it all the time his evil pleasures get fulfilled. No, this guy actually has a certain amount of heart to him that makes you feel a bit bad for the guy, even if he does come off like the type of guy you shouldn’t trust or even like in a film like this. Great to see Fonda give off a wonderful performance and be on the look-out for a nice bit where he talks about motorcycles. Easy Rider reference, anyone?

Also, Luiz Guzman is here. Enough said.

Consensus: The Limey may be a bit too stylized and simple for its own good, but still allows Soderbergh to drench his story in a hard-boiled narrative that gives you some great performances from this cast, as well as some real thrilling moments of violence, that harken back to the golden days of 60’s and 70’s thrillers.

8 / 10

Really? Does it need to be that high?

Photos Courtesy of: Artisan Entertainment