THE LIMEY
The 25: Blood-sprayed pulp weds genuine feeling in this mood-drenched late-90's rebel cry.
You know you've got screen presence when you can make checking into a hotel an act of total badassery.
In The Limey's opening minutes (set, like the rest of the film, to a soundtrack of blissfully buzzy 60's-garage-rock-oddities), our leading man, Wilson (Terence Stamp), doesn't do anything terribly interesting; he sits on a plane, exits an airport, hails a taxi, checks into a hotel, unpacks his things, washes up, and sits down for a quick smoke. But Stamp, with his chiseled face, laser-sharp eyes, and singular strut, exudes such star power that you can't take your eyes off him. In a modern movie culture sadly bereft of Great Screen-Filling Faces (compare Bogie to Brad Pitt-oh wait, there's no contest), Stamp's every glance is electrifying. It's that face-and the shadings of regret, fear, and rage that Stamp allows to seep into it-that fuels this wild ride of a crime drama.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, a quiet, quirky mad scientist of the cinema who delights in hopping genres and defying categorization (wait, I thought he made psychological dramas?! But what about his action films?! Or his biopics?!), The Limey follows former criminal Wilson's simple two-part quest; 1) Find and force a confession from sleazy record producer Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), who he believes killed his daughter. 2) Dole out a generous helping of sweet revenge. You've seen the plot done before, but not like this. Soderbergh, never one to take the straightfoward approach, deviates from the conventional approach to this sort of material in a few crucial ways:
Time. This is easily one of the most disorienting films I've seen. Notice I didn't say confusing. Disorientation occurs when the filmmakers give you all the puzzle pieces and ask you to put them together. Confusion is a result of the filmmakers not bothering to supply some of the pieces at all. The Limey holds your attention without ever quite giving you your bearing. For instance, instead of showing you an entire conversation, Soderbergh will splice it into several pieces, dropping bits of audio and video from that scene throughout other scenes. We're constantly cutting away from scenes, then returning to them later, which adds extra suspense to an already tense story. Additionally, random sounds from other scenes keep recurring-the sound of Wilson taking a shower fades in randomly, and in scenes that should be filled with noise, we hear nothing but the sound of an airplane lifting off. I don't get it either, but in both cases, its eerie as hell, and it ratchets up the mood considerably. Soderbergh's always been a fan of experimenting, and he's really going off the wall here in a wonderful, kinda brilliant way.
Humour. Screenwriter Lem Dobbs manages to get a few juicy satiric jabs into this fairly serious film. Most of them revolve around the partnership between Wilson and Eduardo (the reliable Luis Gusman), an old friend of Wilson's daughter who's helping him track down Valentine. Wilson's British. Eduardo's Hispanic. The former's Cockney slang and the latter's English-as-a-second-language diction put them in an interesting predicament; they have difficulty understanding each other, and, in even in the so-called "melting pot" of America, everyone else has difficulty understanding them. Other than My Fair Lady, I can't think of another film that takes such sardonic delight in mocking the follies of language. You'll find yourself laughing more than you'd expect in a so-called drama.
Visual Style. Mood, mood, mood. Every scene oozes with it. This is unmistakably film noir, and Ed Lachman honors that Old Hollywood visual style with sharp angles, Chiaroscuro lighting, and slow, deliberate camera movement. The aesthetics of this world-half opulent Shangri-La, half seedy-slum-are so clearly captured that, when someone takes a puff, you feel like you're getting secondhand smoke.
And finally,
Terence Fucking Stamp. I'll mention it again. Long underrated but, thanks to this picture, no longer overlooked, he gives the film its emotional center. He's not some robot with a gun out for blood (hi, Liam Neeson in Taken). He's tormented, wounded, and a bit psychotic. You get the impression that he's watched a few too many revenge flicks himself, and they've fed his desire to embark on this eye-for-an-eye mission. You also glean that he's powered not by some code of morals, but by sheer guilt. He couldn't make things right for his child in life. But, in regards to her death, maybe he can make all things fair. For once.
The Singular Scene: Stamp vs. Fonda. An all-out fisticuffs that ends by the ocean in a moment of quiet, poetic vision. God bless Soderbergh for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3kqRctISwY&feature=related
Sorry about the Espanol subtitles.
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