The Limey Review
by Dennis Schwartz (ozus AT sover DOT net)December 23rd, 1999
LIMEY, THE (director:Steven Soderbergh; screenwriter: Lem Dobbs; cinematographer: Ed Lachman;cast: Terence Stamp (Wilson), Lesley Ann Warren (Elaine), Luis Guzman (Ed), Barry Newman (Avery), Joe Dallesandro (Uncle John), Nicky Katt (Stacy), Peter Fonda (Valentine), Amelia Heinle (Adhara), Melissa George (Jennifer), 1999)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
I only know for sure that this is a revenge type of film and that it plays much like many a classical Western, but is shot in the '60s style of "Point Blank," and is scripted by Lem Dobbs, most probably, for the entertainment value it provides. I also know that a limey is a slang term for a Brit and that he is played with a bravura performance by Terence Stamp. Stamp is so good here, with his fiery blue eyes, intimidating tone, and hollowed cheekbones jutting out from his intense face, playing an ex-con who we only know as Wilson and who is 60- years-old and just got out of the can in England after doing 9-years for armed robbery. We see him on a plane from London to Los Angeles to find out how his daughter Jenny (Melissa) died while he was away, not believing for one moment her death was a result of a car accident.
The story frequently goes from what he is thinking to some flashback to some future thing he wants to do, therefore the time sequence is often confusing. But what remains riveting is the single-minded purpose he has, as he tries to understand what happened to his daughter through his conversations with two of her friends, the middle-aged acting coach for his daughter, Elaine (Warren), who tells him, his daughter says she considered her father to be a ghost in her life, and the burly, heavily tattooed Mexican-American, Eddie (Guzman), who felt sorry for her, and as an ex-con himself, identified with Wilson, therefore he writes Wilson in prison about her death. Wilson also tries to find out what happened to his daughter through a trucking business that is gangster operated, and the conversation with the surly men there takes a more violent turn, resulting in the typical crime film rub out scene. The only thing of interest, is that you have this elderly guy going after these younger hoods, and you can't help feeling that when he kills them, that they got what they deserved.
If there is supposed to be a deeper meaning than revenge in this very titillating feature, it is hard to say what that deeper meaning is, unless from all the garbled Cockney sayings by Wilson, this is a film about what the meaning of one's life is, as a senior citizen who had plenty of time by himself to give the question adequate thought, as we see that he from time-to-time reflects on that subject.
In any case, this film seems to be all style and that style is wonderful to behold. It is also a film about nostalgia, as it brings back haunting memories of a time that was intermixed with hope and confusion. The '60s are dismissed here, as only being what happened in 1966- and early '67, and that golden "hippie" age is further reduced to a few golden moments of feeling free through the promising new music arriving on the scene. At least, this is the view of Peter Fonda, who plays Terry Valentine, a wealthy rock music promoter, the supposed reason for Wilson coming to America, as he was Jenny's boyfriend when she died and is his prime suspect as her killer. Fonda is the slick manipulator of the times, who now has a few palatial homes and enough money to be thought of as a big-time operator, though there seems to be some trouble in his paradise, as he is laundering dirty money for drug dealers and is constantly looking over his shoulder at what trouble lies ahead. He is very convincing as a slime-ball, and I liked peeking into his closet, which is bigger than most people's apartments, with all those shoes and sweaters, and I shouldn't forget that splendid pool and that panoramic view his ultra-modern house has from the top of the Los Angeles hills, indicating that he is someone who is doing very well.
Steven Sodergergh (Sex, Lies, and Videotape/Kafka/Schizopolis/Out of Sight) has a way of making quirky films that border on the mundane but offer promises of much more. In this film he engages several intriguing possibilities and plays them out to the hilt: he has his two major stars, Fonda and Stamp, who were both born in 1939 and both played innocent anti-hero types in the '60s, Fonda, as the biker drug dealer in "Easy Rider" and Stamp, in "Billy Budd," be pitted against each other. In addition, Stamp had a role in 1967 as a thief called Wilson in the first feature by Ken Loach, "Poor Cow". These byplays to the film add some questions to what went wrong with the '60s, as it seems to ask in the film, how does Wilson end up doing hard time in prison robbing the ticket office of a rock concert while Valentine remains stuck in a time warp making big money by still packaging that same music, still going after beautiful young girls, this time replacing Jenny with another live-in beauty, Adhara (Amelia), and crossing the line of innocence in drugs by becoming a party to the big-time criminal aspect of the drug business, as money is his lure and no other pretences of becoming a better person is given. The director makes frequent flashback cuts to the Stamp of younger film days, using the 1967 film he was in, as it becomes more and more evident that this film has many purposes to it, not excluding the former real-life film roles of its present iconic stars and how they are now portrayed onscreen.
As Wilson and Valentine square off with each other, through Wilson's bitter way of looking at him, we get to view his take on Valentine's Hollywood lifestyle, as he visits him in his Los Angeles canyon home and meets his entourage full blast. The first one he meets, is his shady lawyer adviser who is paid to protect him from the unseemly side to his business, Barry Newman as the 60ish Avery, who plays his role as a villain with an intractable mind-set. His first attempt to get Wilson removed from the party results in his security man being fatally thrown down the canyon by the limey. There is also a colorful hitman that Avery hires to get Wilson, Stacy (Katt), someone in love with his image of being a hitman, who has the funniest joke in the film, that is tasteless and irresistible: "What is the smartest thing to come out of a woman's mouth?" Answer. "Einstein's cock."
The filmgoer gets a lot for his price of admission here: a great performance by the actors, a pleasing revenge film with all the usual action sequences and a twist in the plot to keep the viewer further enthralled, it's a film that has all the techniques of the French New Wave filming style, with jump cuts and a fast-moving camera to keep the viewer guessing what's coming next as he is kept adequately confused so that he thinks he is missing something and should see the film again, and the viewer also gets the promise that this baby has something wise to say, which it appears to be on the verge of saying at times; but, I would say, it is safer to believe that this film is style over substance, and in this case, that is not all that bad. Perhaps, the '60s itself was mostly an innocent call for a better world that was manipulated by those who knew better, like the Terry Valentine's of the world. Therefore style over substance isn't all that bad a message for this intensely shot nouveau-noir work, that seemed to be saying something like that or maybe it's just that the king's English, even when spoken by a common criminal in a rich Cockney accent, sounds so worthwhile, that I have been so duly conditioned to believe that about the English language, that I would listen keenly to anyone who spoke like that and believe I was listening to something philosophical.
REVIEWED ON 12/18/99 GRADE: B+
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