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Long Good Friday (Widescreen)
 
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Long Good Friday (Widescreen)

Bob Hoskins (Actor), Helen Mirren (Actor), John Mackenzie (Director) | Rated: R (Restricted) | Format: DVD
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Amazon.co.uk

Intricately plotted and smartly paced, this gangster saga clicks as whodunit, social satire and explosive thriller. The piece is crowned by Bob Hoskins' career-making turn as a London mobster courting respectability and Helen Mirren's subtly detailed performance as his upper-crust mistress. Cockney wiseguy Harold Shand is a would-be burgher whose domination of the city's underworld stems from his shrewdness as a mediator and his skill at harnessing political and economic clout. As Easter approaches, he's poised to launch an aggressive real estate development scheme along the depressed Thames waterfront when all hell breaks loose: a trusted lieutenant is brutally murdered, Shand's mother is nearly killed in a car bombing, one of his pubs is blown apart and the visiting American don crucial to the pending deal is quickly growing wary.

Barrie Keeffe's original screenplay keeps the viewer a step ahead of Shand, providing us with a telling but teasingly incomplete glimpse of the misstep by his underlings that has set chaos loose. At the same time, Keeffe underlines the bourgeois pretensions of the rough-hewn, barrel-chested Shand, how the elegant Victoria (Mirren) helps serve those ambitions and the myriad parallels between Shand's minions and the local politicians and police only too willing to join in his scheme. Tart, funny dialogue and alternately playful and pungent Eastertide imagery complete Keeffe's shrewd design--two key scenes, in a meat locker and a warehouse, invoke the Crucifixion itself.

Even with lesser performances, the script and John Mackenzie's solid direction would make The Long Good Friday a keeper but Hoskins's explosive portrait of Shand and his descent toward brutal revenge elevates the film into the very front rank, earning admiring comparisons to TheGodfather, Scarface, GoodFellas and other classics of that genre. --Sam Sutherland

Amazon.com essential video

Intricately plotted and smartly paced, this gangster saga clicks as whodunit, social satire, and explosive thriller. The piece is crowned by Bob Hoskins's career-making turn as a London mobster courting respectability and Helen Mirren's subtly detailed performance as his upper-crust mistress. Cockney wiseguy Harold Shand is a would-be burgher whose domination of the city's underworld stems from his shrewdness as a mediator and his skill at harnessing political and economic clout. As Easter approaches, he's poised to launch an aggressive real estate development scheme along the depressed Thames waterfront when all hell breaks loose: a trusted lieutenant is brutally murdered, Shand's mother is nearly killed in a car bombing, one of his pubs is blown apart, and the visiting American don crucial to the pending deal is quickly growing wary.

Barrie Keeffe's original screenplay keeps the viewer a step ahead of Shand, providing us with a telling but teasingly incomplete glimpse of the misstep by his underlings that has set chaos loose. At the same time, Keeffe underlines the bourgeois pretensions of the rough-hewn, barrel-chested Shand, how the elegant Victoria (Mirren) helps serve those ambitions, and the myriad parallels between Shand's minions and the local politicians and police only too willing to join in his scheme. Tart, funny dialogue and alternately playful and pungent Eastertide imagery complete Keeffe's shrewd design--two key scenes, in a meat locker and a warehouse, invoke the Crucifixion itself.

Even with lesser performances, the script and John Mackenzie's solid direction would make The Long Good Friday a keeper, but Hoskins's explosive portrait of Shand and his descent toward brutal revenge elevates the film into the very front rank, earning admiring comparisons to The Godfather, Scarface, GoodFellas, and other classics of that genre. On DVD, Criterion's new digital transfer restores more than just the widescreen aspect ratio--the film has never looked better, even if an occasionally muddy sound mix survives to make the thick Cockney accents a challenge to decipher. --Sam Sutherland

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Customer Reviews

26 Reviews
5 star:
 (19)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (26 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Must Have for Film Collectors, Jun 15 2009
By 
C. Clarke (Vancouver) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Long Good Friday (DVD)
This film is a forgotten GEM. Helen Mirrren and Bob Hoskins have a great chemistry, the story well written and Pierce Brosnan in a non-speaking part!
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5.0 out of 5 stars The british answer to the Godfather, May 3 2004
By 
Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Long Good Friday (Widescreen) (DVD)
The clever script allows to build a sollid story. Bob Hoskins surpasses all his performances, past, present or even future. He gave the best performance of his monumental career.
The progressive tension around Hoskins literally overflows the screen and struggles us. That hopeless, that certainless of facing against an enemy of the IRA dimensions and the irreverent mood assumed by Hoskins in that unforgettable dialogue with his american partners lead to a smart and unexpecting ending.
Helen Mirren , combines her talent and amazing beuty and Pierce Brossnan has a little cameo in the end of the movie.
Under any circunstance you can avoid watching this brilliant and even underrated film of the eighties.
A true gem.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Francis Monkman, Mar 21 2004
By 
Raymond F. Gillis (Yonkers, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Long Good Friday (Widescreen) (DVD)
This is a fine film...tough and complicated. I'd rate it far superior to any American gangster film. It features a driving and under rated soundtrack from Francis Monkman. The acting is, of course, first rate.
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› Go to Amazon.com to see all 74 reviews  4.3 out of 5 stars 
 
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